Strategies for assessing and reducing inherent occupational health hazard and risk based on process information

Over the last few decades, the concept of inherent occupational health has gained increasing attention to reduce occupational hazards that may adversely impact workers' health. In order to assess occupational hazards in the chemical process, different inherent occupational health assessment methods have been developed at the early stages of process development and design. The methods in the order of process information availability - ranging from the detailed piping and instrumentation diagrams to a simple sketch of process concepts are the: occupational health index (OHI), health quotient index (HQI) and inherent occupational health index (IOHI). This paper proposes systematic heuristic frameworks to assist process designers and engineers in assessing and reducing inherent occupational health hazards or risks based on process information availability. Strategies for reducing health hazards or risks in the OHI, HQI and IOHI methods based on inherently safer design (ISD) keywords of minimization, substitution, moderation and simplification are included in this study. It is worth mentioning that the proposed frameworks act as guidelines for design engineers in systematically selecting the appropriate index and methodology to assess and reduce health hazards/risks based on the availability of the process information. A case study is solved to illustrate the proposed framework

Guidelines for process safety hazard assessment based on process information

In any new chemical process development and design, process safety is a critical aspect to be considered besides economic and technical feasibility of the manufacture of the product. A lack of proper hazard assessment during the design phase may later result in accidents with disastrous consequences to workers, the public as well as the environment. Many methods have been introduced to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the safety level of processes. Despite the availability of a large amount of methods, a systematic framework that details guidelines for hazard identification, risk assessment, safety measure design, and safe critical decision-making is still missing. To address this issue, the main objective of this study was to propose a systematic framework that outlines comprehensive guidelines for assessing the safety performance of processes based on information from the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID). Apart from proposing the framework, appropriate strategies for minimizing safety hazards and risks are also recommended. In addition, the user is assisted in selecting the most appropriate assessment method according to his or her needs and the scope and constraints of the assessment. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed framework

Guidelines for Process Safety Hazard Assessment Based on Process Information

In any new chemical process development and design, process safety is a critical aspect to be considered besides economic and technical feasibility of the manufacture of the product. A lack of proper hazard assessment during the design phase may later result in accidents with disastrous consequences to workers, the public as well as the environment. Many methods have been introduced to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the safety level of processes. Despite the availability of a large amount of methods, a systematic framework that details guidelines for hazard identification, risk assessment, safety measure design, and safe critical decision-making is still missing. To address this issue, the main objective of this study was to propose a systematic framework that outlines comprehensive guidelines for assessing the safety performance of processes based on information from the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID). Apart from proposing the framework, appropriate strategies for minimizing safety hazards and risks are also recommended. In addition, the user is assisted in selecting the most appropriate assessment method according to his or her needs and the scope and constraints of the assessment. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed framework

Guidelines for Process Safety Hazard Assessment Based on Process Information

In any new chemical process development and design, process safety is a critical aspect to be considered besides economic and technical feasibility of the manufacture of the product. A lack of proper hazard assessment during the design phase may later result in accidents with disastrous consequences to workers, the public as well as the environment. Many methods have been introduced to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the safety level of processes. Despite the availability of a large amount of methods, a systematic framework that details guidelines for hazard identification, risk assessment, safety measure design, and safe critical decision-making is still missing. To address this issue, the main objective of this study was to propose a systematic framework that outlines comprehensive guidelines for assessing the safety performance of processes based on information from the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID). Apart from proposing the framework, appropriate strategies for minimizing safety hazards and risks are also recommended. In addition, the user is assisted in selecting the most appropriate assessment method according to his or her needs and the scope and constraints of the assessment. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed framework

PLASER: Pronunciation Learning via Automatic Speech Recognition

PLASER is a multimedia tool with instant feedback designed to teach English pronunciation for high-school students of Hong Kong whose mother tongue is Cantonese Chinese. The objective is to teach correct pronunciation and not to assess a student's overall pronunciation quality. Major challenges related to speech recognition technology include: allowance for non-native accent, reliable and corrective feedbacks, and visualization of errors

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Process synthesis and optimisation of a sustainable integrated biorefinery via fuzzy optimisation

Over the last decade, utilization of biomasses is highly encouraged to conserve scarce resources, reduce dependency on energy imports as well as protect the environment. Integrated biorefinery emerged as noteworthy concept to integrate several conversion technologies to have more flexibility in product generation with energy self-sustained and reduce the overall cost of the process. Integrated biorefinery is a processing facility that converts biomass feedstocks into a wide range of value added products via multiple technologies. In this work, a systematic approach for the synthesis and optimization of a sustainable integrated biorefinery which considers economic, environmental, inherent safety, and inherent occupational health performances is presented. Fuzzy optimization approach is adapted to solve four parameters simultaneously as they are often conflicting in process synthesis and optimization of an integrated biorefinery. An integrated palm oil-based biorefinery case study is solved to demonstrate the proposed approach. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 4212–4227, 2013