Unusually extensive head trauma in a hydraulic elevator accident: post-mortem MSCT findings, autopsy results and scene reconstruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobsen, Christina; Schön, Corinna A; Kneubuehl, Beat; Thali, Michael J; Aghayev, Emin

2008-10-01

Accidental or intentional falls from a height are a form of blunt trauma and occur frequently in forensic medicine. Reports describing elevator accidents as a small subcategory of falls from heights are rare in the medical literature and no report on injury patterns or scene reconstruction of such an accident was found. A case of an accident in a hydraulic elevator with a man falling 3m was examined using post-mortem multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) and autopsy. The man suffered an unusually extensive trauma and died at the scene. Post-mortem MSCT examination showed a comminute fracture of the skull, the right femur and the first lumbar vertebra. Severe lacerations of the brain with epidural, subdural and subarachnoidal haemorrhages over both hemispheres were diagnosed. Autopsy confirmed these findings. To reconstruct the accident we used radiological and autopsy results as well as findings at the scene.

Preventing marine accidents caused by technology-induced human error

OpenAIRE

Bielić, Toni; Hasanspahić, Nermin; Čulin, Jelena

2017-01-01

The objective of embedding technology on board ships, to improve safety, is not fully accomplished. The paper studies marine accidents caused by human error resulting from improper human-technology interaction. The aim of the paper is to propose measures to prevent reoccurrence of such accidents. This study analyses the marine accident reports issued by Marine Accidents Investigation Branch covering the period from 2012 to 2014. The factors that caused these accidents are examined and categor...

Accident Sequence Evaluation Program: Human reliability analysis procedure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Swain, A.D.

1987-02-01

This document presents a shortened version of the procedure, models, and data for human reliability analysis (HRA) which are presented in the Handbook of Human Reliability Analysis With emphasis on Nuclear Power Plant Applications (NUREG/CR-1278, August 1983). This shortened version was prepared and tried out as part of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) funded by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and managed by Sandia National Laboratories. The intent of this new HRA procedure, called the ''ASEP HRA Procedure,'' is to enable systems analysts, with minimal support from experts in human reliability analysis, to make estimates of human error probabilities and other human performance characteristics which are sufficiently accurate for many probabilistic risk assessments. The ASEP HRA Procedure consists of a Pre-Accident Screening HRA, a Pre-Accident Nominal HRA, a Post-Accident Screening HRA, and a Post-Accident Nominal HRA. The procedure in this document includes changes made after tryout and evaluation of the procedure in four nuclear power plants by four different systems analysts and related personnel, including human reliability specialists. The changes consist of some additional explanatory material (including examples), and more detailed definitions of some of the terms. 42 refs

Accident Sequence Evaluation Program: Human reliability analysis procedure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Swain, A.D.

1987-02-01

This document presents a shortened version of the procedure, models, and data for human reliability analysis (HRA) which are presented in the Handbook of Human Reliability Analysis With emphasis on Nuclear Power Plant Applications (NUREG/CR-1278, August 1983). This shortened version was prepared and tried out as part of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) funded by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and managed by Sandia National Laboratories. The intent of this new HRA procedure, called the ''ASEP HRA Procedure,'' is to enable systems analysts, with minimal support from experts in human reliability analysis, to make estimates of human error probabilities and other human performance characteristics which are sufficiently accurate for many probabilistic risk assessments. The ASEP HRA Procedure consists of a Pre-Accident Screening HRA, a Pre-Accident Nominal HRA, a Post-Accident Screening HRA, and a Post-Accident Nominal HRA. The procedure in this document includes changes made after tryout and evaluation of the procedure in four nuclear power plants by four different systems analysts and related personnel, including human reliability specialists. The changes consist of some additional explanatory material (including examples), and more detailed definitions of some of the terms. 42 refs.

NASA Medical Response to Human Spacecraft Accidents

Science.gov (United States)

Patlach, Robert

2011-01-01

This slide presentation reviews NASA's role in the response to spacecraft accidents that involve human fatalities or injuries. Particular attention is given to the work of the Mishap Investigation Team (MIT), the first response to the accidents and the interface to the accident investigation board. The MIT does not investigate the accident, but the objective of the MIT is to gather, guard, preserve and document the evidence. The primary medical objectives of the MIT is to receive, analyze, identify, and transport human remains, provide assistance in the recovery effort, and to provide family Casualty Coordinators with latest recovery information. The MIT while it does not determine the cause of the accident, it acts as the fact gathering arm of the Mishap Investigation Board (MIB), which when it is activated may chose to continue to use the MIT as its field investigation resource. The MIT membership and the specific responsibilities and tasks of the flight surgeon is reviewed. The current law establishing the process is also reviewed.

Guidelines for system modeling: pre-accident human errors, rev.0

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kang, Dae Il; Jung, W. D.; Lee, Y. H.; Hwang, M. J.; Yang, J. E

2004-01-01

The evaluation results of Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) of pre-accident human errors in the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) for the Korea Standard Nuclear Power Plant (KSNP) using the ASME PRA standard show that more than 50% of 10 items to be improved are related to the identification and screening analysis for them. Thus, we developed a guideline for modeling pre-accident human errors for the system analyst to resolve some items to be improved for them. The developed guideline consists of modeling criteria for the pre-accident human errors (identification, qualitative screening, and common restoration errors) and detailed guidelines for pre-accident human errors relating to testing, maintenance, and calibration works of nuclear power plants (NPPs). The system analyst use the developed guideline and he or she applies it to the system which he or she takes care of. The HRA analyst review the application results of the system analyst. We applied the developed guideline to the auxiliary feed water system of the KSNP to show the usefulness of it. The application results of the developed guideline show that more than 50% of the items to be improved for pre-accident human errors of auxiliary feed water system are resolved. The guideline for modeling pre-accident human errors developed in this study can be used for other NPPs as well as the KSNP. It is expected that both use of the detailed procedure, to be developed in the future, for the quantification of pre-accident human errors and the guideline developed in this study will greatly enhance the PSA quality in the HRA of pre-accident human errors.

Guidelines for system modeling: pre-accident human errors, rev.0

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, Dae Il; Jung, W. D.; Lee, Y. H.; Hwang, M. J.; Yang, J. E.

2004-01-01

The evaluation results of Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) of pre-accident human errors in the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) for the Korea Standard Nuclear Power Plant (KSNP) using the ASME PRA standard show that more than 50% of 10 items to be improved are related to the identification and screening analysis for them. Thus, we developed a guideline for modeling pre-accident human errors for the system analyst to resolve some items to be improved for them. The developed guideline consists of modeling criteria for the pre-accident human errors (identification, qualitative screening, and common restoration errors) and detailed guidelines for pre-accident human errors relating to testing, maintenance, and calibration works of nuclear power plants (NPPs). The system analyst use the developed guideline and he or she applies it to the system which he or she takes care of. The HRA analyst review the application results of the system analyst. We applied the developed guideline to the auxiliary feed water system of the KSNP to show the usefulness of it. The application results of the developed guideline show that more than 50% of the items to be improved for pre-accident human errors of auxiliary feed water system are resolved. The guideline for modeling pre-accident human errors developed in this study can be used for other NPPs as well as the KSNP. It is expected that both use of the detailed procedure, to be developed in the future, for the quantification of pre-accident human errors and the guideline developed in this study will greatly enhance the PSA quality in the HRA of pre-accident human errors

Human factors review for Severe Accident Sequence Analysis (SASA)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krois, P.A.; Haas, P.M.; Manning, J.J.; Bovell, C.R.

1984-01-01

The paper will discuss work being conducted during this human factors review including: (1) support of the Severe Accident Sequence Analysis (SASA) Program based on an assessment of operator actions, and (2) development of a descriptive model of operator severe accident management. Research by SASA analysts on the Browns Ferry Unit One (BF1) anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) was supported through a concurrent assessment of operator performance to demonstrate contributions to SASA analyses from human factors data and methods. A descriptive model was developed called the Function Oriented Accident Management (FOAM) model, which serves as a structure for bridging human factors, operations, and engineering expertise and which is useful for identifying needs/deficiencies in the area of accident management. The assessment of human factors issues related to ATWS required extensive coordination with SASA analysts. The analysis was consolidated primarily to six operator actions identified in the Emergency Procedure Guidelines (EPGs) as being the most critical to the accident sequence. These actions were assessed through simulator exercises, qualitative reviews, and quantitative human reliability analyses. The FOAM descriptive model assumes as a starting point that multiple operator/system failures exceed the scope of procedures and necessitates a knowledge-based emergency response by the operators. The FOAM model provides a functionally-oriented structure for assembling human factors, operations, and engineering data and expertise into operator guidance for unconventional emergency responses to mitigate severe accident progression and avoid/minimize core degradation. Operators must also respond to potential radiological release beyond plant protective barriers. Research needs in accident management and potential uses of the FOAM model are described. 11 references, 1 figure

Dosimetric reconstruction of radiological accident by numerical simulations by means associating an anthropomorphic model and a Monte Carlo computation code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Courageot, Estelle

2010-01-01

After a description of the context of radiological accidents (definition, history, context, exposure types, associated clinic symptoms of irradiation and contamination, medical treatment, return on experience) and a presentation of dose assessment in the case of external exposure (clinic, biological and physical dosimetry), this research thesis describes the principles of numerical reconstruction of a radiological accident, presents some computation codes (Monte Carlo code, MCNPX code) and the SESAME tool, and reports an application to an actual case (an accident which occurred in Equator in April 2009). The next part reports the developments performed to modify the posture of voxelized phantoms and the experimental and numerical validations. The last part reports a feasibility study for the reconstruction of radiological accidents occurring in external radiotherapy. This work is based on a Monte Carlo simulation of a linear accelerator, with the aim of identifying the most relevant parameters to be implemented in SESAME in the case of external radiotherapy

Development of Human Factor Management Requirements and Human Error Classification for the Prevention of Railway Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwak, Sang Log; Park, Chan Woo; Shin, Seung Ryoung

2008-08-01

Railway accident analysis results show that accidents cased by human factors are not decreasing, whereas H/W related accidents are steadily decreasing. For the efficient management of human factors, many expertise on design, conditions, safety culture and staffing are required. But current safety management activities on safety critical works are focused on training, due to the limited resource and information. In order to improve railway safety, human factors management requirements for safety critical worker and human error classification is proposed in this report. For this accident analysis, status of safety measure on human factor, safety management system on safety critical worker, current safety planning is analysis

Reconstructive dosimetry and radiation doses evaluation of members of the public due to radiological accident in industrial radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lima, Camila Moreira Araujo de

2016-01-01

Radiological accidents have occurred mainly in the practices recognized as high risk radiological and classified by the IAEA as Categories 1 and 2, and highlighted the radiotherapy, industrial irradiators and industrial radiography. In Brazil, since there were five major cases in industrial radiography, which involved 7 radiation workers and 19 members of the public, causing localized radiation lesions on the hands and fingers. One of these accidents will be the focus of this work. In this accident, a "1"9"2Ir radioactive source was exposed for more than 8 hours in the workplace inside a company, exposing radiation workers, individuals of the public and people from the surrounding facilities, including children of a school. The radioactive source was also handled by a security worker causing severe radiation injuries in the hand and fingers. In this paper, the most relevant and used techniques of reconstructive dosimetry internationally are presented. To estimate the radiation doses received by exposed individuals in various scenarios of radiological accident in focus, the following computer codes were used: Visual Monte Carlo Dose Calculation (VMC), Virtual Environment for Radiological and Nuclear Accidents Simulation (AVSAR) and RADPRO Calculator. Through these codes some radiation doses were estimated, such as, 33.90 Gy in security worker's finger, 4.47 mSv in children in the school and 55 to 160 mSv for workers in the company during the whole day work. It is intended that this work will contribute to the improvement of dose reconstruction methodology for radiological accidents, having then more realist radiation doses. (author)

The contribution of human factors to accidents in the offshore oil industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gordon, Rachael P.E.

1998-01-01

Accidents such as the Piper Alpha disaster illustrate that the performance of a highly complex socio-technical system, is dependent upon the interaction of technical, human, social, organisational, managerial and environmental factors and that these factors can be important co-contributors that could potentially lead to a catastrophic event. The purpose of this article is to give readers an overview of how human factors contribute to accidents in the offshore oil industry. An introduction to human errors and how they relate to human factors in general terms is given. From here the article discusses some of the human factors which were found to influence safety in other industries and describes the human factors codes used in accident reporting forms in the aviation, nuclear and marine industries. Analysis of 25 accident reporting forms from offshore oil companies in the UK sector of the North Sea was undertaken in relation to the human factors. Suggestions on how these accident reporting forms could be improved are given. Finally, this article describes the methods by which accidents can be reduced by focusing on the human factors, such as feedback from accident reporting in the oil industry, auditing of unsafe acts and auditing of latent failures

Accident sequence analysis of human-computer interface design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fan, C.-F.; Chen, W.-H.

2000-01-01

It is important to predict potential accident sequences of human-computer interaction in a safety-critical computing system so that vulnerable points can be disclosed and removed. We address this issue by proposing a Multi-Context human-computer interaction Model along with its analysis techniques, an Augmented Fault Tree Analysis, and a Concurrent Event Tree Analysis. The proposed augmented fault tree can identify the potential weak points in software design that may induce unintended software functions or erroneous human procedures. The concurrent event tree can enumerate possible accident sequences due to these weak points

Upon the reconstruction of accidents triggered by tire explosion. Analytical model and case study

Science.gov (United States)

Gaiginschi, L.; Agape, I.; Talif, S.

2017-10-01

Accident Reconstruction is important in the general context of increasing road traffic safety. In the casuistry of traffic accidents, those caused by tire explosions are critical under the severity of consequences, because they are usually happening at high speeds. Consequently, the knowledge of the running speed of the vehicle involved at the time of the tire explosion is essential to elucidate the circumstances of the accident. The paper presents an analytical model for the kinematics of a vehicle which, after the explosion of one of its tires, begins to skid, overturns and rolls. The model consists of two concurent approaches built as applications of the momentum conservation and energy conservation principles, and allows determination of the initial speed of the vehicle involved, by running backwards the sequences of the road event. The authors also aimed to both validate the two distinct analytical approaches by calibrating the calculation algorithms on a case study

Human performance breakdowns are rarely accidents: they are usually very poor choices with disastrous results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Besco, Robert O.

2004-01-01

When human error is involved in the error chain of accidents in complex systems, the causes of the errors are very seldom the result of: - a random slip,; - one inadvertent oversight,; - a single unintended action,; - one mis-perceived event,; - simple mal-performance of a complex action, or; - a poor training program for the human operators. Invariably, the cause of the break down is in a very poor conscious choice by someone from the operator back through system designer, the supervision, management and leadership through the entire organization. Usually the operator bears the burden of the blame and is either rebuked, retrained or replaced. In systems such as commercial aviation, complex manufacturing systems, power plants, process control systems, information-processing systems and communications networks, the replacement or retraining of individuals or even classes of individuals usually does not result in any long-term improvement of the safety or effectiveness of the system. What is needed is a system that identifies the reasons why the operators made the errors. Further a system is needed that can recommend what can be done to improve the future performance within the system. The professional performance analysis system (PPAS) has been developed and applied to more than 50 major aircraft accidents in the past 30 years. The PPAS is a direct outgrowth of the human performance analysis system developed by Robert Mager over 45 years ago. The PPAS system is applied after a complete and unbiased definition and description of the events of the accident or incident has been developed by the teams of accident investigation and accident reconstruction professionals. The PPAS then uses a systematic protocol and algorithm to determine the reasons as to why the humans committed the errors or why they performed at subnormal performance levels. This process is based on quantitative behavioral science principles and findings that have been demonstrated valid for many

Multibody model of the human upper extremity for fracture simulation

OpenAIRE

Milanowicz, Marcin; K?dzior, Krzysztof

2016-01-01

About 3.8 million people are injured in accidents at work in Europe every year. The resulting high costs are incurred by the victims themselves, their families, employers and society. We have used a numerical simulation to reconstruct accidents at work for several years. To reconstruct these accidents MADYMO R7.5 with a numerical human model (pedestrian model) is used. However, this model is dedicated to the analysis of car-to-pedestrian accidents and thus cannot be fully used for reconstruct...

Accident or homicide--virtual crime scene reconstruction using 3D methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Buck, Ursula; Naether, Silvio; Räss, Beat; Jackowski, Christian; Thali, Michael J

2013-02-10

The analysis and reconstruction of forensically relevant events, such as traffic accidents, criminal assaults and homicides are based on external and internal morphological findings of the injured or deceased person. For this approach high-tech methods are gaining increasing importance in forensic investigations. The non-contact optical 3D digitising system GOM ATOS is applied as a suitable tool for whole body surface and wound documentation and analysis in order to identify injury-causing instruments and to reconstruct the course of event. In addition to the surface documentation, cross-sectional imaging methods deliver medical internal findings of the body. These 3D data are fused into a whole body model of the deceased. Additional to the findings of the bodies, the injury inflicting instruments and incident scene is documented in 3D. The 3D data of the incident scene, generated by 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry, is also included into the reconstruction. Two cases illustrate the methods. In the fist case a man was shot in his bedroom and the main question was, if the offender shot the man intentionally or accidentally, as he declared. In the second case a woman was hit by a car, driving backwards into a garage. It was unclear if the driver drove backwards once or twice, which would indicate that he willingly injured and killed the woman. With this work, we demonstrate how 3D documentation, data merging and animation enable to answer reconstructive questions regarding the dynamic development of patterned injuries, and how this leads to a real data based reconstruction of the course of event. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chernobyl - system accident or human error?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stang, E.

1996-01-01

Did human error cause the Chernobyl disaster? The standard point of view is that operator error was the root cause of the disaster. This was also the view of the Soviet Accident Commission. The paper analyses the operator errors at Chernobyl in a system context. The reactor operators committed errors that depended upon a lot of other failures that made up a complex accident scenario. The analysis is based on Charles Perrow's analysis of technological disasters. Failure possibility is an inherent property of high-risk industrial installations. The Chernobyl accident consisted of a chain of events that were both extremely improbable and difficult to predict. It is not reasonable to put the blame for the disaster on the operators. (author)

Reconstruction of dose loads on population in the initial period of the Chernobyl accident and estimation of thyroid cancer risk in Belarus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krivoruchko, K.; Naumov, A.

1997-01-01

The Chernobyl accident caused significant long-term consequences to the environment, public health, and economic status of Belarus. The contamination from short-lived radionuclides, in particular iodine 131, was so high that the subsequent exposure of millions of people has been termed 'iodine shock'. During the first days of the accident, the majority of the dose of radiation received by the residents of Belarus was to the thyroid gland. This will affect the health of the population for a long time to come. The resulting epidemic of childhood thyroid cancer is the first indisputable health after-effect of the Chernobyl accident. Thyroid cancer morbidity among children increased more than 10 fold in the post-Chernobyl period. Maps of cesium 137, which has a half life of 37 years, have been published, but it is evident, that the distribution of thyroid cancer morbidity differs from the known distribution of cesium 137 in soil. Territorial distribution of thyroid cancer morbidity is often compared to distribution of cesium 137 in the soil. This practice is inaccurate but often utilized since no maps of iodine 131 contamination exist, due to its short half life of 8.04 days. Reconstruction of the spatial distribution of short-lived isotopes in the first days after the accident, could clarify the impact of radiation on human health and allow for a spatial and temporal prognosis of the development of the cancer epidemic, particularly, thyroid cancer. Due to the unfortunate fact that the measuring equipment was inadequate to properly monitor the scale of radiation exposure during the early period of the accident, detailed direct information on the deposition of the short-lived radionuclides and the doses to the population has been irretrievably lost. Now the only way to reconstruct the dynamics of the radioecological situation of the initial period of the Chernobyl accident is to make a retrospective assessment of radiation exposures related to the short

Physical reconstruction of the radiological accident of Chilca (Lima - Peru); Reconstruccion fisica del accidente radiologico de Chilca (Lima - Peru)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lachos, A. [Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas, Departamento de Radioterapia, Av. Angamos Este 2520, Surquillo, Lima (Peru); Marquez, J. F., E-mail: alachosd1271@yahoo.com [Univesidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Facultad de Ciencias Fisicas, C. German Amezaga 375, Ciudad Univesitaria, Lima (Peru)

2014-08-15

The radiological accident happened in the Chilca District, the Canete County at 60 km to the south of Lima-Peru, during the night of January 11 to 12, 2012. The physical reconstruction of the accident was carried out in January 21, 2012, by means of the information gathering administrative and technical of the radioactive source as well as of the installation, the personnel and the involved procedures in the accidental event, information of the space geometry where the event took place. The preliminary information indicates that the source could have been locked in the guide tube of the equipment, next to the collimator in the first takes radiographic. The radiation monitors were not activated on the procedure, impeding this way, not to realize the flaw and causing that the personnel were exposed to the radiation during the whole work period. Their hands and especially their fingers would have been only to some millimeters of the source. With the obtained information and the measurements of the exposure rates of the radioactive source, was carried out the dose calculation to total body, the dose received in the hands and the dose received in the index finger of the left hand. The accident happened by operative procedure breach, by lack of training of the operators. The physical reconstruction of the accident contributes fundamental information for the decisions taking in the medical management of the accidents by radiation. (author)

A Human Reliability Analysis of Post- Accident Human Errors in the Low Power and Shutdown PSA of KSNP

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kang, Daeil; Kim, J. H.; Jang, S. C

2007-03-15

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, using the ANS low power and shutdown (LPSD) probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) Standard, evaluated the LPSD PSA model of the KSNP, Yonggwang Units 5 and 6, and identified the items to be improved. The evaluation results of human reliability analysis (HRA) of the post-accident human errors in the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP showed that 10 items among 19 items of supporting requirements for those in the ANS PRA Standard were identified as them to be improved. Thus, we newly carried out a HRA for post-accident human errors in the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP. Following tasks are the improvements in the HRA of post-accident human errors of the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP compared with the previous one: Interviews with operators in the interpretation of the procedure, modeling of operator actions, and the quantification results of human errors, site visit. Applications of limiting value to the combined post-accident human errors. Documentation of information of all the input and bases for the detailed quantifications and the dependency analysis using the quantification sheets The assessment results for the new HRA results of post-accident human errors using the ANS LPSD PRA Standard show that above 80% items of its supporting requirements for post-accident human errors were graded as its Category II. The number of the re-estimated human errors using the LPSD Korea Standard HRA method is 385. Among them, the number of individual post-accident human errors is 253. The number of dependent post-accident human errors is 135. The quantification results of the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP with new HEPs show that core damage frequency (CDF) is increased by 5.1% compared with the previous baseline CDF It is expected that this study results will be greatly helpful to improve the PSA quality for the domestic nuclear power plants because they have sufficient PSA quality to meet the Category II of Supporting Requirements for the post-accident

A Human Reliability Analysis of Post- Accident Human Errors in the Low Power and Shutdown PSA of KSNP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, Daeil; Kim, J. H.; Jang, S. C.

2007-03-01

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, using the ANS low power and shutdown (LPSD) probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) Standard, evaluated the LPSD PSA model of the KSNP, Yonggwang Units 5 and 6, and identified the items to be improved. The evaluation results of human reliability analysis (HRA) of the post-accident human errors in the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP showed that 10 items among 19 items of supporting requirements for those in the ANS PRA Standard were identified as them to be improved. Thus, we newly carried out a HRA for post-accident human errors in the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP. Following tasks are the improvements in the HRA of post-accident human errors of the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP compared with the previous one: Interviews with operators in the interpretation of the procedure, modeling of operator actions, and the quantification results of human errors, site visit. Applications of limiting value to the combined post-accident human errors. Documentation of information of all the input and bases for the detailed quantifications and the dependency analysis using the quantification sheets The assessment results for the new HRA results of post-accident human errors using the ANS LPSD PRA Standard show that above 80% items of its supporting requirements for post-accident human errors were graded as its Category II. The number of the re-estimated human errors using the LPSD Korea Standard HRA method is 385. Among them, the number of individual post-accident human errors is 253. The number of dependent post-accident human errors is 135. The quantification results of the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP with new HEPs show that core damage frequency (CDF) is increased by 5.1% compared with the previous baseline CDF It is expected that this study results will be greatly helpful to improve the PSA quality for the domestic nuclear power plants because they have sufficient PSA quality to meet the Category II of Supporting Requirements for the post-accident

The Development of Marine Accidents Human Reliability Assessment Approach: HEART Methodology and MOP Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ludfi Pratiwi Bowo

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Humans are one of the important factors in the assessment of accidents, particularly marine accidents. Hence, studies are conducted to assess the contribution of human factors in accidents. There are two generations of Human Reliability Assessment (HRA that have been developed. Those methodologies are classified by the differences of viewpoints of problem-solving, as the first generation and second generation. The accident analysis can be determined using three techniques of analysis; sequential techniques, epidemiological techniques and systemic techniques, where the marine accidents are included in the epidemiological technique. This study compares the Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique (HEART methodology and the 4M Overturned Pyramid (MOP model, which are applied to assess marine accidents. Furthermore, the MOP model can effectively describe the relationships of other factors which affect the accidents; whereas, the HEART methodology is only focused on human factors.

Human error as the root cause of severe accidents at nuclear reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kovács Zoltán; Rýdzi, Stanislav

2017-01-01

A root cause is a factor inducing an undesirable event. It is feasible for root causes to be eliminated through technological process improvements. Human error was the root cause of all severe accidents at nuclear power plants. The TMI accident was caused by a series of human errors. The Chernobyl disaster occurred after a badly performed test of the turbogenerator at a reactor with design deficiencies, and in addition, the operators ignored the safety principles and disabled the safety systems. At Fukushima the tsunami risk was underestimated and the project failed to consider the specific issues of the site. The paper describes the severe accidents and points out the human errors that caused them. Also, provisions that might have eliminated those severe accidents are suggested. The fact that each severe accident occurred on a different type of reactor is relevant – no severe accident ever occurred twice at the same reactor type. The lessons learnt from the severe accidents and the safety measures implemented on reactor units all over the world seem to be effective. (orig.)

An integrated graphic–taxonomic–associative approach to analyze human factors in aviation accidents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gong Lei

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Human factors are critical causes of modern aviation accidents. However, existing accident analysis methods encounter limitations in addressing aviation human factors, especially in complex accident scenarios. The existing graphic approaches are effective for describing accident mechanisms within various categories of human factors, but cannot simultaneously describe inadequate human–aircraft–environment interactions and organizational deficiencies effectively, and highly depend on analysts’ skills and experiences. Moreover, the existing methods do not emphasize latent unsafe factors outside accidents. This paper focuses on the above three limitations and proposes an integrated graphic–taxonomic–associative approach. A new graphic model named accident tree (AcciTree, with a two-mode structure and a reaction-based concept, is developed for accident modeling and safety defense identification. The AcciTree model is then integrated with the well-established human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS to enhance both reliability of the graphic part and logicality of the taxonomic part for improving completeness of analysis. An associative hazard analysis technique is further put forward to extend analysis to factors outside accidents, to form extended safety requirements for proactive accident prevention. Two crash examples, a research flight demonstrator by our team and an industrial unmanned aircraft, illustrate that the integrated approach is effective for identifying more unsafe factors and safety requirements.

Human stem cells for craniomaxillofacial reconstruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Jalali, Morteza; Kirkpatrick, William Niall Alexander; Cameron, Malcolm Gregor; Pauklin, Siim; Vallier, Ludovic

2014-07-01

Human stem cell research represents an exceptional opportunity for regenerative medicine and the surgical reconstruction of the craniomaxillofacial complex. The correct architecture and function of the vastly diverse tissues of this important anatomical region are critical for life supportive processes, the delivery of senses, social interaction, and aesthetics. Craniomaxillofacial tissue loss is commonly associated with inflammatory responses of the surrounding tissue, significant scarring, disfigurement, and psychological sequelae as an inevitable consequence. The in vitro production of fully functional cells for skin, muscle, cartilage, bone, and neurovascular tissue formation from human stem cells, may one day provide novel materials for the reconstructive surgeon operating on patients with both hard and soft tissue deficit due to cancer, congenital disease, or trauma. However, the clinical translation of human stem cell technology, including the application of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in novel regenerative therapies, faces several hurdles that must be solved to permit safe and effective use in patients. The basic biology of hPSCs remains to be fully elucidated and concerns of tumorigenicity need to be addressed, prior to the development of cell transplantation treatments. Furthermore, functional comparison of in vitro generated tissue to their in vivo counterparts will be necessary for confirmation of maturity and suitability for application in reconstructive surgery. Here, we provide an overview of human stem cells in disease modeling, drug screening, and therapeutics, while also discussing the application of regenerative medicine for craniomaxillofacial tissue deficit and surgical reconstruction.

The Development of Marine Accidents Human Reliability Assessment Approach: HEART Methodology and MOP Model

OpenAIRE

Ludfi Pratiwi Bowo; Wanginingastuti Mutmainnah; Masao Furusho

2017-01-01

Humans are one of the important factors in the assessment of accidents, particularly marine accidents. Hence, studies are conducted to assess the contribution of human factors in accidents. There are two generations of Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) that have been developed. Those methodologies are classified by the differences of viewpoints of problem-solving, as the first generation and second generation. The accident analysis can be determined using three techniques of analysis; sequen...

Animated Reconstruction of Forensic Animation

OpenAIRE

Hala, Albert; Unver, Ertu

1998-01-01

An animated accident display in court can be significant evidentiary tool. Computer graphics animation reconstructions which can be shown in court are cost effective, save valuable time and illustrate complex and technical issues, are realistic and can prove or disprove arguments or theories with reference to the perplexing newtonian physics involved in many accidents: this technology may well revolutionise accident reconstruction, thus enabling prosecution and defence to be more effective in...

Experimental research of vehicle traction properties for reconstruction of traffic accidents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dudziak Marian

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In order to broaden the database of motor vehicle traction properties in unusual conditions, the research team has performed experimental studies: on wet and snow-covered surfaces. Tests of vehicles equipped with winter tyres with non-skid snow chains have been performed on snow-covered surfaces. It has been shown that on snowy surface chains affect vehicle traction properties, mostly during acceleration. They increase the rate of acceleration up to 50% compared to a vehicle with winter tyres without chains. The results of the performed research can be the basis for the full reconstruction of road accidents under these conditions. Knowledge of traction properties of cars in difficult and unusual conditions is an important cognitive factor and serves to improve road safety.

The Tchernobyl enigma or: the human factors in severe accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Llory, M.

1988-01-01

Using the analysis of many documents published after the Tchernobyl accident, we attempt to distinguish the main human factors aspects in severe accidents that come out, and the causes the most frequently quoted to ''explain'' it. But the Tchernobyl accident keeps its ''enigmatic'' feature, like any other accident. The need to make a deeper investigation concerning safety leads to look for various research paths that go beyond the usual normative positions, based on a too much mechanistic model of man. It is to the functioning of groups in work situations that we suggest to devote part of the research and thinking effort. We attempt to show briefly how two theories, the theory of ''groupthink'' and the theory of ''trade defensive ideologies'', can throw a light on the problem of human factors in nuclear power plants [fr

Human factors analysis of incident/accident report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuroda, Isao

1992-01-01

Human factors analysis of accident/incident has different kinds of difficulties in not only technical, but also psychosocial background. This report introduces some experiments of 'Variation diagram method' which is able to extend to operational and managemental factors. (author)

An Evidential Reasoning-Based CREAM to Human Reliability Analysis in Maritime Accident Process.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Bing; Yan, Xinping; Wang, Yang; Soares, C Guedes

2017-10-01

This article proposes a modified cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM) for estimating the human error probability in the maritime accident process on the basis of an evidential reasoning approach. This modified CREAM is developed to precisely quantify the linguistic variables of the common performance conditions and to overcome the problem of ignoring the uncertainty caused by incomplete information in the existing CREAM models. Moreover, this article views maritime accident development from the sequential perspective, where a scenario- and barrier-based framework is proposed to describe the maritime accident process. This evidential reasoning-based CREAM approach together with the proposed accident development framework are applied to human reliability analysis of a ship capsizing accident. It will facilitate subjective human reliability analysis in different engineering systems where uncertainty exists in practice. © 2017 Society for Risk Analysis.

Human Factors in Accidents Involving Remotely Piloted Aircraft

Science.gov (United States)

Merlin, Peter William

2013-01-01

This presentation examines human factors that contribute to RPA mishaps and provides analysis of lessons learned. RPA accident data from U.S. military and government agencies were reviewed and analyzed to identify human factors issues. Common contributors to RPA mishaps fell into several major categories: cognitive factors (pilot workload), physiological factors (fatigue and stress), environmental factors (situational awareness), staffing factors (training and crew coordination), and design factors (human machine interface).

Human error and the problem of causality in analysis of accidents

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Jens

1990-01-01

, designers or managers have played a major role. There are, however, several basic problems in analysis of accidents and identification of human error. This paper addresses the nature of causal explanations and the ambiguity of the rules applied for identification of the events to include in analysis......Present technology is characterized by complexity, rapid change and growing size of technical systems. This has caused increasing concern with the human involvement in system safety. Analyses of the major accidents during recent decades have concluded that human errors on part of operators...

Review of U.S. Army Unmanned Aerial Systems Accident Reports: Analysis of Human Error Contributions

Science.gov (United States)

2018-03-20

within report documents. The information presented was obtained through a request to use the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center’s Risk Management ...controlled flight into terrain (13 accidents), fueling errors by improper techniques (7 accidents), and a variety of maintenance errors (10 accidents). The...and 9 of the 10 maintenance accidents. Table 4. Frequencies Based on Source of Human Error Human error source Presence Poor Planning

The 1st NIRS symposium on reconstruction of early internal dose in the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident. Proceedings

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kurihara, Osamu; Akahane, Keiichi; Fukuda, Shigekazu; Miyahara, Nobuyuki; Yonai, Shunsuke [eds.

2012-11-15

The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku district (northern Japan) and the massive tsunamis generated by the earthquake wreaked the most catastrophic damage Japan has experienced in recent centuries. About twenty thousand people were killed or went missing in this natural disaster. This disaster also caused an unprecedented accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company. Three reactors in operation were automatically scrammed right after the earthquake; however, these reactors ultimately reached core melt-down by the loss of their cooling systems regardless of extensive efforts for recovery. An enormous amount of radioactive material was released into the environment due to vent operations and a series of explosive events at reactor buildings. The total amount of released radioactive material has been estimated to be about 900 PBq (in {sup 131}I equivalents), which is around one-tenth of that in the Chernobyl accident. Estimation of the dose to the public in affected areas is essential to assess the possible radiological risks in the accident. The National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) developed a system for estimating early external doses of residents in Fukushima mainly based on information on individual behavior in combination with ambient dose levels measured at various locations after the accident. NIRS has reported the external doses of about 100 thousand residents as of August 2012, revealing that a majority of the external doses are below a few mSv. However, it is difficult to estimate internal doses because of the limited data from individual monitoring or air sampling, especially in the early stage of the accident when radioiodine with a relatively short-half life would have existed as the largest contributor to the thyroid dose. Our current understanding is that there are only about 1,500 human thyroid data from the public and that the main route of intake in the accident was

The 1st NIRS symposium on reconstruction of early internal dose in the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident. Proceedings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kurihara, Osamu; Akahane, Keiichi; Fukuda, Shigekazu; Miyahara, Nobuyuki; Yonai, Shunsuke

2012-11-01

The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku district (northern Japan) and the massive tsunamis generated by the earthquake wreaked the most catastrophic damage Japan has experienced in recent centuries. About twenty thousand people were killed or went missing in this natural disaster. This disaster also caused an unprecedented accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company. Three reactors in operation were automatically scrammed right after the earthquake; however, these reactors ultimately reached core melt-down by the loss of their cooling systems regardless of extensive efforts for recovery. An enormous amount of radioactive material was released into the environment due to vent operations and a series of explosive events at reactor buildings. The total amount of released radioactive material has been estimated to be about 900 PBq (in 131 I equivalents), which is around one-tenth of that in the Chernobyl accident. Estimation of the dose to the public in affected areas is essential to assess the possible radiological risks in the accident. The National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) developed a system for estimating early external doses of residents in Fukushima mainly based on information on individual behavior in combination with ambient dose levels measured at various locations after the accident. NIRS has reported the external doses of about 100 thousand residents as of August 2012, revealing that a majority of the external doses are below a few mSv. However, it is difficult to estimate internal doses because of the limited data from individual monitoring or air sampling, especially in the early stage of the accident when radioiodine with a relatively short-half life would have existed as the largest contributor to the thyroid dose. Our current understanding is that there are only about 1,500 human thyroid data from the public and that the main route of intake in the accident was probably

Development of an anthropomorphic model and a Monte Carlo calculation code devoted to the physical reconstruction of a radiological accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roux, A.

2001-01-01

The diversity of radiological accidents makes difficult the medical prognosis and the therapy choice from only clinical observations. To complete this information, it is important to know the global dose received by the organism and the dose distributions in depth in tissues. The dose estimation can be made by a physical reconstruction of the accident with the help of tools based on experimental techniques or on calculation. The software of the geometry construction (M.G.E.D.), associated to the Monte-Carlo code of photons and neutrons transport (M.O.R.S.E.) replies these constraints. An important result of this work is to determine the principal parameters to know in function of the accident type, as well as the precision level required for these parameters. (N.C.)

Applicability of simplified human reliability analysis methods for severe accidents

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boring, R.; St Germain, S. [Idaho National Lab., Idaho Falls, Idaho (United States); Banaseanu, G.; Chatri, H.; Akl, Y. [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)

2016-03-15

Most contemporary human reliability analysis (HRA) methods were created to analyse design-basis accidents at nuclear power plants. As part of a comprehensive expansion of risk assessments at many plants internationally, HRAs will begin considering severe accident scenarios. Severe accidents, while extremely rare, constitute high consequence events that significantly challenge successful operations and recovery. Challenges during severe accidents include degraded and hazardous operating conditions at the plant, the shift in control from the main control room to the technical support center, the unavailability of plant instrumentation, and the need to use different types of operating procedures. Such shifts in operations may also test key assumptions in existing HRA methods. This paper discusses key differences between design basis and severe accidents, reviews efforts to date to create customized HRA methods suitable for severe accidents, and recommends practices for adapting existing HRA methods that are already being used for HRAs at the plants. (author)

Psychophysiological and other factors affecting human performance in accident prevention and investigation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klinestiver, L.R.

1980-01-01

Psychophysiological factors are not uncommon terms in the aviation incident/accident investigation sequence where human error is involved. It is highly suspect that the same psychophysiological factors may also exist in the industrial arena where operator personnel function; but, there is little evidence in literature indicating how management and subordinates cope with these factors to prevent or reduce accidents. It is apparent that human factors psychophysological training is quite evident in the aviation industry. However, while the industrial arena appears to analyze psychophysiological factors in accident investigations, there is little evidence that established training programs exist for supervisors and operator personnel

The Human Aspect of the Fukushima Daiichi Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anegawa, T.; Kawano, A.

2016-01-01

Recognizing itself as the main party involved in the nuclear accident triggered by the Tohoku-Chihou-Taiheiyo-Oki Earthquake on March 11, 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has performed accident investigation from various aspects. Results of the investigation are reported mainly in two reports; (1) Fukushima Nuclear Accident Analysis Report (June 20, 2012), which identified the timeline and the proximate causes of the accident, and (2) Summary of Fukushima Nuclear Accident and Nuclear Safety Reform Plan (March 29, 2013) to set forth the results of the investigation and provide an analysis of the background factors surrounding the accident and countermeasures taken. This presentation will first provide overview of the accident response at Fukushima Daiichi and Daini Nuclear Power Stations. Voices from the first responders at the sites will be introduced in order to share thoughts of individuals involved in the emergency response. Summary of retrospective study of the accident by one of the shift supervisors at the time of the accident will be presented in order to share the facts that happened at main control rooms. The shift supervisor and his crew had to manage the situation for extended period of time that exceeded the scenarios that they had been trained, in a situation with no lightning and high radiation condition. During the accident response, shift supervisors had to decide to dispatch some of his crew members to the field to open valves, check the status of equipment etc., in the situation where the high radiation exposure is foreseen. The presentation will include conflict of shift supervisors and crew focusing on the human aspects. In addition, actions being taken at the Emergency Response Centers (ERC) set up at the seismic-isolated building on-site and the Headquarters in Tokyo will be shared focusing on the human aspects related to the accident progress. This includes difficult decisions to dispatch first responders to the field, in the

Investigations of Human and Organizational Factors in hazardous vapor accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Yanfu; Faghih Roohi, Shahrzad; Hu Xiuming; Xie Min

2011-01-01

Highlights: → HFACS provides a systematic guideline in accident investigations. The hierarchal structure of HFACS forces investigators to seek out latent HOFs. → Bayesian Network enhances the ability of the HFACS by allowing experts to quantify the degree of relationships among the HOFs. → The fuzzy AHP helps to reduce the subjective biases by avoiding the need to give explicit probability values for the variables' states. - Abstract: This paper presents a model to assess the contribution of Human and Organizational Factor (HOF) to accidents. The proposed model is made up of two phases. The first phase is the qualitative analysis of HOF responsible for accidents, which utilizes Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to seek out latent HOFs. The hierarchy of HOFs identified in the first phase provides inputs for the analysis in the second phase, which is a quantitative analysis using Bayesian Network (BN). BN enhances the ability of HFACS by allowing investigators or domain experts to measure the degree of relationships among the HOFs. In order to estimate the conditional probabilities of BN, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and decomposition method are applied in the model. Case studies show that the model is capable of seeking out critical latent human and organizational errors and carrying out quantitative analysis of accidents. Thereafter, corresponding safety prevention measures are derived.

Application of activity theory to analysis of human-related accidents: Method and case studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoon, Young Sik; Ham, Dong-Han; Yoon, Wan Chul

2016-01-01

This study proposes a new approach to human-related accident analysis based on activity theory. Most of the existing methods seem to be insufficient for comprehensive analysis of human activity-related contextual aspects of accidents when investigating the causes of human errors. Additionally, they identify causal factors and their interrelationships with a weak theoretical basis. We argue that activity theory offers useful concepts and insights to supplement existing methods. The proposed approach gives holistic contextual backgrounds for understanding and diagnosing human-related accidents. It also helps identify and organise causal factors in a consistent, systematic way. Two case studies in Korean nuclear power plants are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method. Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was also applied to the case studies. The results of using HFACS were then compared with those of using the proposed method. These case studies showed that the proposed approach could produce a meaningful set of human activity-related contextual factors, which cannot easily be obtained by using existing methods. It can be especially effective when analysts think it is important to diagnose accident situations with human activity-related contextual factors derived from a theoretically sound model and to identify accident-related contextual factors systematically. - Highlights: • This study proposes a new method for analysing human-related accidents. • The method was developed based on activity theory. • The concept of activity system model and contradiction was used in the method. • Two case studies in nuclear power plants are presented. • The method is helpful to consider causal factors systematically and comprehensively.

Arabian, Asian, western: a cross-cultural comparison of aircraft accidents from human factor perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Wardi, Yousuf

2017-09-01

Rates of aviation accident differ in different regions; and national culture has been implicated as a factor. This invites a discussion about the role of national culture in aviation accidents. This study makes a cross-cultural comparison between Oman, Taiwan and the USA. A cross-cultural comparison was acquired using data from three studies, including this study, by applying the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) framework. The Taiwan study presented 523 mishaps with 1762 occurrences of human error obtained from the Republic of China Air Force. The study from the USA carried out for commercial aviation had 119 accidents with 245 instances of human error. This study carried out in Oman had a total of 40 aircraft accidents with 129 incidences. Variations were found between Oman, Taiwan and the USA at the levels of organisational influence and unsafe supervision. Seven HFACS categories showed significant differences between the three countries (p culture can have an impact on aviation safety. This study revealed that national culture plays a role in aircraft accidents related to human factors that cannot be disregarded.

Reconstructive dosimetry of radiological accidents - study of a brazilian case of industrial gamma radiography; Dosimetria reconstrutiva de acidentes radiologicos - estudo de um caso brasileiro de gamagrafia industrial

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Silva, Francisco Cesar Augusto da; Hunt, John G.; Ramalho, Adriana [Instituto de Radioprotecao e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Pinto, Livia M.F. Amalfi [ARCtest - Servicos Tecnicos de Inspecao e Manutencao Industrial Ltda., Paulinia, SP (Brazil)]. E-mail: protecao@arctest.com.br

2002-07-01

On May 2000, an industrial gamma radiography operator, during a maintenance work of a {sup 60}Co irradiator, has suffered a radiological accident with severe consequences to the left hand. The experts of the High Doses Analysis Group (GADE/IRD/CNEN) initiated the reconstructive dosimetry for the radiation dose estimation, in order to determine the real dose received by the operator, and to help the medical evaluation for prescribing the medical procedures for treatment of the involved victim. This paper presents the reconstructive dosimetry performed through the determination of the radiation doses of the operator, based on theoretical, experimental and computational methods. For the computer methods, a program for the calculation of external doses were used, based on the Monte Carlo method, and a human body simulator composed by voxels. The values of effective and equivalent doses are also presented which has caused severe lesions on the operator hand.

[Recreational boating accidents--Part 1: Catamnestic study].

Science.gov (United States)

Lignitz, Eberhard; Lustig, Martina; Scheibe, Ernst

2014-01-01

Deaths on the water are common in the autopsy material of medicolegal institutes situated on the coast or big rivers and lakes (illustrated by the example of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Greifswald University). They mostly occur during recreational boating activities. Apart from hydro-meteorological influences, human error is the main cause of accidents. Often it is not sufficiently kept in mind whether the boat crew is fit for sailing and proper seamanship is ensured. Drowning (following initial hypothermia) is the most frequent cause of death. Medicolegal aspects are not decisive for ordering a forensic autopsy. As statistics are not compiled in a uniform way, a comparison of the data of different institutions engaged in investigating deaths at sea and during water sports activities is hardly possible, neither on a national nor an international basis--and the reconstruction of aquatic accidents is generally difficult. Fatal accidents can only be prevented by completely clarifying their causes.

One-stage human acellular nerve allograft reconstruction for digital nerve defects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xue-yuan Li

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Human acellular nerve allografts have a wide range of donor origin and can effectively avoid nerve injury in the donor area. Very little is known about one-stage reconstruction of digital nerve defects. The present study observed the feasibility and effectiveness of human acellular nerve allograft in the reconstruction of < 5-cm digital nerve defects within 6 hours after injury. A total of 15 cases of nerve injury, combined with nerve defects in 18 digits from the Department of Emergency were enrolled in this study. After debridement, digital nerves were reconstructed using human acellular nerve allografts. The patients were followed up for 6-24 months after reconstruction. Mackinnon-Dellon static two-point discrimination results showed excellent and good rates of 89%. Semmes-Weinstein monofilament test demonstrated that light touch was normal, with an obvious improvement rate of 78%. These findings confirmed that human acellular nerve allograft for one-stage reconstruction of digital nerve defect after hand injury is feasible, which provides a novel trend for peripheral nerve reconstruction.

Human Error and General Aviation Accidents: A Comprehensive, Fine-Grained Analysis Using HFACS

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Wiegmann, Douglas; Faaborg, Troy; Boquet, Albert; Detwiler, Cristy; Holcomb, Kali; Shappell, Scott

2005-01-01

... of both commercial and general aviation (GA) accidents. These analyses have helped to identify general trends in the types of human factors issues and aircrew errors that have contributed to civil aviation accidents...

Nuclear Accidents: Consequences for Human, Society and Energy Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. A. Bolshov

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The article examines radiation and hygienic regulations with regard to the elimination of consequences of the Chernobyl NPP accident in the context of relationships with other aspects, primarily socio-economic and political factors. This experience is reasonable to take into account when defining criteria in other regulatory fields, for example, in radioactive waste classification and remediation of areas. The article presents an analysis of joint features and peculiarities of nuclear accidents in the industry and energy sectors. It is noted that the scale of global consequences of the Chernobyl NPP accident is defined by the large-scale release of radioactivity into the environment, as well as an affiliation of the nuclear installation with the energy sector. Large-scale radiation accidents affect the most diverse spheres of human activities, what, in its turn, evokes the reverse reaction from the society and its institutions, including involvement of political means of settlement. If the latter is seeing for criteria that are scientifically justified and feasible, then the preconditions for minimizing socio-economic impacts are created. In other cases, political decisions, such as nuclear units’ shutdown and phasing out of nuclear energy, appear to be an economic price which society, as a whole and a single industry sector, pay to compensate the negative public response. The article describes fundamental changes in approaches to ensure nuclear and radiation safety that occurred after the Chernobyl NPP accident. Multiple and negative consequences of the Chernobyl accident for human and society are balanced to some extent by a higher level of operational safety, emergency preparedness, and life-cycle safety. The article indicates that harmonization and ensuring consistency of regulations that involve different aspects of nuclear and radiation safety are important to implement practical solutions to the nuclear legacy problems. The

Experience in reconstruction of psychological reality for persons engaged in elimination of the Chernobyl' NPP accident effects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salamatov, V.A.; Nyagu, A.T.

1990-01-01

The results of psichosemantic studies of adaptation process are discussed, i.e. the consciousness contents for personnel (120 persons) engaged in works connected with the Chernobyl' NPP accident effect elimination and reconstruction of the subjective image of the Chernobyl' NPP 30-km zone on this basis are described. The mental tension for the zone personnel is estimated. The results obtained testify to the presence of chronic stress and exceeding the level of psychoemotional tension. Increases in the uneasiness level and emotional instability for the personnel are revealed

Development of modified voxel phantoms for the numerical dosimetric reconstruction of radiological accidents involving external sources: implementation in SESAME tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Courageot, Estelle; Sayah, Rima; Huet, Christelle

2010-05-07

Estimating the dose distribution in a victim's body is a relevant indicator in assessing biological damage from exposure in the event of a radiological accident caused by an external source. When the dose distribution is evaluated with a numerical anthropomorphic model, the posture and morphology of the victim have to be reproduced as realistically as possible. Several years ago, IRSN developed a specific software application, called the simulation of external source accident with medical images (SESAME), for the dosimetric reconstruction of radiological accidents by numerical simulation. This tool combines voxel geometry and the MCNP(X) Monte Carlo computer code for radiation-material interaction. This note presents a new functionality in this software that enables the modelling of a victim's posture and morphology based on non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) surfaces. The procedure for constructing the modified voxel phantoms is described, along with a numerical validation of this new functionality using a voxel phantom of the RANDO tissue-equivalent physical model.

Monte Carlo dose reconstruction in case of a radiological accident: application to the accident in Chile in December 2005; Reconstitution de dose par calcul Monte Carlo en cas d'accident radiologique: application a l'accident du Chili de decembre 2005

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huet, C.; Clairand, I.; Trompier, F.; Bottollier-Depois, J.F. [Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (IRSN), Dir. de la Radioprotection de l' Homme, 92 - Fontenay aux Roses (France); Bey, E. [Hopital d' Instruction des Armees Percy, 92 - Clamart (France)

2007-10-15

Following a radiological accident caused by a gamma-graphy source in Chile in December 2005 involving one victim, I.R.S.N. was contacted to perform the dosimetric reconstruction of the accident using numerical simulation. Tools developed in the laboratory, associating anthropomorphic mathematic or voxel phantoms with the Monte Carlo calculation code m.c.n.p.x., were used in order to determine the dose distribution on the left buttock and absorbed doses to critical organs. The dosimetric mapping show that the absorbed at the skin surface is very high (1900 Gy) but drops rapidly at deep. At a depth of 5 cm, it is 20 Gy. Calculations performed with a mathematical phantom indicate that average doses to the critical organs are relatively low. Moreover, possible bone marrow sites for puncture are identified. Based on the dosimetric mapping, an excision measuring 5 cm in depth by 10 cm in diameter was performed on the left buttock of the victim. (authors)

[Study of work accidents related to human body fluids exposure among health workers at a university hospital].

Science.gov (United States)

Balsamo, Ana Cristina; Felli, Vanda Elisa Andres

2006-01-01

This descriptive and exploratory study from a quantitative approach aimed to characterize workers who were victims of work accidents related to human body fluids exposure and to evaluate the accident victim care protocol. The population consisted of 48 workers who were victims of work accidents involving exposure to human body fluids, from July 2000 to June 2001. Data were collected through a form and interviews. Results showed that nursing workers presented higher accident risk levels and that 87.50% involved piercing and cutting material, such as needles and butterflies (70%). As to the accident-related situation/activity, the workers indicated that 25% were due to an "inadequate act during the procedure"; 19.64% mentioned that "it happened" and 29.17% answered that they did not have any suggestion. This study provided important tools to review and elaborate strategies to prevent accidents involving exposure to human body fluids.

Direct 2-D reconstructions of conductivity and permittivity from EIT data on a human chest.

Science.gov (United States)

Herrera, Claudia N L; Vallejo, Miguel F M; Mueller, Jennifer L; Lima, Raul G

2015-01-01

A novel direct D-bar reconstruction algorithm is presented for reconstructing a complex conductivity distribution from 2-D EIT data. The method is applied to simulated data and archival human chest data. Permittivity reconstructions with the aforementioned method and conductivity reconstructions with the previously existing nonlinear D-bar method for real-valued conductivities depicting ventilation and perfusion in the human chest are presented. This constitutes the first fully nonlinear D-bar reconstructions of human chest data and the first D-bar permittivity reconstructions of experimental data. The results of the human chest data reconstructions are compared on a circular domain versus a chest-shaped domain.

An analysis on human factor issues in criticality accident at a uranium processing plant. Investigation on human behavior contributing to the criticality accident. Interim report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sasou, Kuonihide; Goda, Hideki; Hirotsu, Yuko

1999-01-01

At 10:30 am, September 30th, 1999, a criticality accident occurred in a conversion building of a uranium processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki prefecture. 69 people including 3 workers who then worked at the building, 3 fire fighters who dispatched to rescue them were exposed to the radiation. People with a 350 m-radius of the site were recommended to evacuate themselves from the region to a temporarily prepared evacuation center. And about one hundred thousand people within a 10 km-radius were also advised to stay inside of their home. Nuclear Safety Commission's Accident Investigation Committee is investigating causes of this accident and have been revealing that deviation from government-authorized processing method and negligence of its illegal procedure had contributed to the accident. The influence of this accident is expanding not only to the plant operating company, local people but also to Japanese nuclear power policy, the whole nuclear industry in Japan. Especially pervasion of 'Safety Culture' is strongly being required. This report analyses latent factors of some human behavior directly contributing to the criticality accident. It also mentions that 4 critical points on the poor climate for safety in the work place, the inadequate safety management, the unsuitable equipment and the production-biased company's policy are the latent factors of this accident. It also finds that the poor climate and the production-biased policy are the most important factors. It can be said that some people directly or indirectly having caused the accident are the victims of them. (author)

Using fire dynamics simulator to reconstruct a hydroelectric power plant fire accident.

Science.gov (United States)

Chi, Jen-Hao; Wu, Sheng-Hung; Shu, Chi-Min

2011-11-01

The location of the hydroelectric power plant poses a high risk to occupants seeking to escape in a fire accident. Calculating the heat release rate of transformer oil as 11.5 MW/m(2), the fire at the Taiwan Dajia-River hydroelectric power plant was reconstructed using the fire dynamics simulator (FDS). The variations at the escape route of the fire hazard factors temperature, radiant heat, carbon monoxide, and oxygen were collected during the simulation to verify the causes of the serious casualties resulting from the fire. The simulated safe escape time when taking temperature changes into account is about 236 sec, 155 sec for radiant heat changes, 260 sec for carbon monoxide changes, and 235-248 sec for oxygen changes. These escape times are far less than the actual escape time of 302 sec. The simulation thus demonstrated the urgent need to improve escape options for people escaping a hydroelectric power plant fire. © 2011 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Nonexpansive immediate breast reconstruction using human acellular tissue matrix graft (AlloDerm).

Science.gov (United States)

Salzberg, C Andrew

2006-07-01

Immediate breast reconstruction has become a standard of care following mastectomy for cancer, largely due to improved esthetic and psychologic outcomes achieved with this technique. However, the current historical standards--transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap reconstruction and expander--implant surgery-still have limitations as regards patient morbidity, short-term body-image improvements, and even cost. To address these shortcomings, we employ a novel concept of human tissue replacement to enhance breast shape and provide total coverage, enabling immediate mound reconstruction without the need for breast expansion prior to permanent implant placement. AlloDerm (human acellular tissue matrix) is a human-derived graft tissue with extensive experience in various settings of skin and soft tissue replacement surgery. This report describes the success using acellular tissue matrix to provide total coverage over the prosthesis in immediate reconstruction, with limited muscle dissection. In this population, 49 patients (76 breasts) successfully underwent the acellular tissue matrix-based immediate reconstruction, resulting in durable breast reconstruction with good symmetry. These findings may predict that acellular tissue matrix-supplemented immediate breast reconstruction will become a new technique for the immediate reconstruction of the postmastectomy breast.

NOTE: Development of modified voxel phantoms for the numerical dosimetric reconstruction of radiological accidents involving external sources: implementation in SESAME tool

Science.gov (United States)

Courageot, Estelle; Sayah, Rima; Huet, Christelle

2010-05-01

Estimating the dose distribution in a victim's body is a relevant indicator in assessing biological damage from exposure in the event of a radiological accident caused by an external source. When the dose distribution is evaluated with a numerical anthropomorphic model, the posture and morphology of the victim have to be reproduced as realistically as possible. Several years ago, IRSN developed a specific software application, called the simulation of external source accident with medical images (SESAME), for the dosimetric reconstruction of radiological accidents by numerical simulation. This tool combines voxel geometry and the MCNP(X) Monte Carlo computer code for radiation-material interaction. This note presents a new functionality in this software that enables the modelling of a victim's posture and morphology based on non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) surfaces. The procedure for constructing the modified voxel phantoms is described, along with a numerical validation of this new functionality using a voxel phantom of the RANDO tissue-equivalent physical model.

Analysis of Human Errors in Industrial Incidents and Accidents for Improvement of Work Safety

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Leplat, J.; Rasmussen, Jens

1984-01-01

Methods for the analysis of work accidents are discussed, and a description is given of the use of a causal situation analysis in terms of a 'variation tree' in order to explain the course of events of the individual cases and to identify possible improvements. The difficulties in identifying...... 'causes' of accidents are discussed, and it is proposed to analyze accident reports with the specific aim of identifying the potential for future improvements rather than causes of past events. In contrast to traditional statistical analysis of work accident data, which typically give very general...... recommendations, the method proposed identifies very explicit countermeasures. Improvements require a change in human decisions during equipment design, work planning, or the execution itself. The use of a model of human behavior drawing a distinction between automated skill-based behavior, rule-based 'know...

A strategy to the development of a human error analysis method for accident management in nuclear power plants using industrial accident dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Yong Hee; Kim, Jae Whan; Jung, Won Dae; Ha, Jae Ju

1998-06-01

This technical report describes the early progress of he establishment of a human error analysis method as a part of a human reliability analysis(HRA) method for the assessment of the human error potential in a given accident management strategy. At first, we review the shortages and limitations of the existing HRA methods through an example application. In order to enhance the bias to the quantitative aspect of the HRA method, we focused to the qualitative aspect, i.e., human error analysis(HEA), during the proposition of a strategy to the new method. For the establishment of a new HEA method, we discuss the basic theories and approaches to the human error in industry, and propose three basic requirements that should be maintained as pre-requisites for HEA method in practice. Finally, we test IAD(Industrial Accident Dynamics) which has been widely utilized in industrial fields, in order to know whether IAD can be so easily modified and extended to the nuclear power plant applications. We try to apply IAD to the same example case and develop new taxonomy of the performance shaping factors in accident management and their influence matrix, which could enhance the IAD method as an HEA method. (author). 33 refs., 17 tabs., 20 figs

A human factors analysis of fatal and serious injury accidents in Alaska, 2004-2009.

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-01

"This report summarizes the analysis of 97 general aviation accidents in Alaska that resulted in a fatality or serious : injury to one or more aircraft occupants for the years 2004-2009. The accidents were analyzed using the Human : Factors Analysis ...

Accident at Three Mile Island: the human dimensions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sills, D.L.; Wolf, C.P.; Shelanski, V.B.

1982-01-01

A separate abstract was prepared for each of the 19 chapters, divided according to the following Parts: (1) Public Perceptions of Nuclear Energy; (2) Local Responses to Nuclear Plants; (3) Institutional Responsibilities for Nuclear Energy; (4) The Interaction of Social and Technical Systems; and (5) Implications for Public Policy. All of the abstracts will appear in Energy Abstracts for Policy Analysis (EAPA); three will appear in Energy Research Abstracts (ERA). At the request of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (the Kemeny Commission), the Social Science Research Council commissioned social scientists to write a series of papers on the human dimensions of the event. This volume includes those papers, in revised and expanded form, and a comprehensive bibliography of published and unpublished social science research on the accident and its aftermath

An analysis of the human reliability on Three Mile Island II accident considering THERP and ATHEANA methodologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fonseca, Renato Alves da; Alvim, Antonio Carlos Marques

2005-01-01

The research on the Analysis of the Human Reliability becomes more important every day, as well as the study of the human factors and the contributions of the same ones to the incidents and accidents, mainly in complex plants or of high technology. The analysis here developed it uses the methodologies THERP (Technique for Human Error Prediction) and ATHEANA (A Technique for Human Error Analysis), as well as, the tables and the cases presented in THERP Handbook and to develop a qualitative and quantitative study of an occurred nuclear accident. The chosen accident was it of Three Mile Island (TMI). The accident analysis has revealed a series of incorrect actions that resulted in the permanent loss of the reactor and shutdown of Unit 2. This study also aims at enhancing the understanding of the THERP and ATHEANA methods and at practical applications. In addition, it is possible to understand the influence of plant operational status on human failures and the influence of human failures on equipment of a system, in this case, a nuclear power plant. (author)

An analysis on human factor issues in criticality accident at a uranium processing plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sasou, Kunihide; Goda, Hidenori; Hirotsu, Yuko

2000-01-01

This report analyses latent factors of a human behavior directly contributing to the criticality accident. It is pouring some 16 kg-U with an enrichment of 18.8% into the precipitation tank. It is the fact that the direct cause of this accident is the workers' unsafe act. However, the authors find lots of latent factors relating to the production-biased company's policy, the poor climate for safety in the work place, the inadequate safety management and the unsuitable equipment. This accident was caused by many organizational factors. This paper also discusses lessons learned from this accident. (author)

Contribution of Chernobyl accident to human contamination with strontium-90

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Botezatu, Elena; Iacob, Olga

1998-01-01

The Romanian surveys performed after the Chernobyl accident pointed out the environmental and diet contamination with 90 Sr at levels of one-two orders of magnitude higher than prior to the accident. Given the 90 Sr osteo-tropism we have been interested in its accumulation in the human teeth and bone. The search on 90 Sr accumulation in human teeth evidenced concentrations of 10.8 - 330 mBq/g Ca in milk teeth of young children born during 1986 - 1987 subsequent to Chernobyl. These values were 10-600 times higher than those obtained for permanent or deciduous teeth of all the other age groups or of the same age group born before Chernobyl. There was more 90 Sr activity concentration in ribs than in femur. The highest values of 90 Sr content (mBq/g Ca) were of 75-122 in ribs and 74-120 in femur for 7-10 years old group. These individuals were 0-3 years old during the period of greatest deposition. This age is by far the most critical years due to the heaviest uptake. Smaller concentration values were recorded for the age group older than 55, respectively of 3-20 in ribs and 3.3-10.2 in femur. Our data suggest that the Chernobyl accident did not lead to the increase of 90 Sr accumulation in adults. From the collective equivalent doses of 1500 manSv for bone surfaces and 680 manSv for active red marrow, a potential number of 4 radiation-induced fatal cancers in the studied population (5,2 mil.inh) has been estimated as attributable to Chernobyl accident

On the Impact to the Human Health from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Simic, Zdenko

2014-01-01

Nuclear energy has long controversial history with hypes of utopian promises and doom fears; from 'electricity too cheap to meter' to the certain destruction of the world. Three major nuclear accidents (TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima) helped only to strengthen mostly negative perception of the public. After TMI and Chernobyl understanding of the nuclear accidents impact to human health has considerably improved. This has helped to reduce uncertainty about risk estimates, but too little was achieved regarding the communication of how absolutely and relatively this risk is in fact small. Now with Fukushima there is new potential for even better understanding of the realistic scope of the total nuclear accident impact. Based on the experience with previous accidents obviously there are significant obstacles to achieve that. This paper is presenting current understanding of the impact on the human health from the Fukushima nuclear accident. Focus is given also to the uncertainties, perception, and relative prospective to other non radiation related risks. It is clear from data and assessments that immediate radiation related risk as well as expected long term health impact is even with conservative approach negligible and that it will be most probable impossible to determine it with health monitoring and epidemiological study. However, because of existing perception, lack of thrust and better approach many practical reactions are going to perpetuate negative picture, about radiation and nuclear energy, and perhaps cause some additional psychosocial risk. It is troubling that this induced risk is substantial and it could have been mainly prevented by timely applying experience form previous major accidents thru education, communication and transparency. Because of historical and local circumstance, communication difficulties and lack of sufficient understanding of uncertainties and magnitudes it seems that Fukushima nuclear accident will not be much better case

The Analysis of the Contribution of Human Factors to the In-Flight Loss of Control Accidents

Science.gov (United States)

Ancel, Ersin; Shih, Ann T.

2012-01-01

In-flight loss of control (LOC) is currently the leading cause of fatal accidents based on various commercial aircraft accident statistics. As the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) emerges, new contributing factors leading to LOC are anticipated. The NASA Aviation Safety Program (AvSP), along with other aviation agencies and communities are actively developing safety products to mitigate the LOC risk. This paper discusses the approach used to construct a generic integrated LOC accident framework (LOCAF) model based on a detailed review of LOC accidents over the past two decades. The LOCAF model is comprised of causal factors from the domain of human factors, aircraft system component failures, and atmospheric environment. The multiple interdependent causal factors are expressed in an Object-Oriented Bayesian belief network. In addition to predicting the likelihood of LOC accident occurrence, the system-level integrated LOCAF model is able to evaluate the impact of new safety technology products developed in AvSP. This provides valuable information to decision makers in strategizing NASA's aviation safety technology portfolio. The focus of this paper is on the analysis of human causal factors in the model, including the contributions from flight crew and maintenance workers. The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) taxonomy was used to develop human related causal factors. The preliminary results from the baseline LOCAF model are also presented.

Energy Analysis of Road Accidents Based on Close-Range Photogrammetry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alejandro Morales

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an efficient and low-cost approach for energy analysis of road accidents using images obtained using consumer-grade digital cameras and smartphones. The developed method could be used by security forces in order to improve the qualitative and quantitative analysis of traffic accidents. This role of the security forces is crucial to settle arguments; consequently, the remote and non-invasive collection of accident related data before the scene is modified proves to be essential. These data, taken in situ, are the basis to perform the necessary calculations, basically the energy analysis of the road accident, for the corresponding expert reports and the reconstruction of the accident itself, especially in those accidents with important damages and consequences. Therefore, the method presented in this paper provides the security forces with an accurate, three-dimensional, and scaled reconstruction of a road accident, so that it may be considered as a support tool for the energy analysis. This method has been validated and tested with a real crash scene simulated by the local police in the Academy of Public Safety of Extremadura, Spain.

Xenobiotic metabolism in human skin and 3D human skin reconstructs: A review

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gibbs, S.; Sandt, J.J.M. van de; Merk, H.F.; Lockley, D.J.; Pendlington, R.U.; Pease, C.K.

2007-01-01

In this review, we discuss and compare studies of xenobiotic metabolism in both human skin and 3D human skin reconstructs. In comparison to the liver, the skin is a less studied organ in terms of characterising metabolic capability. While the skin forms the major protective barrier to environmental

A review of human factors causations in commercial air transport accidents and incidents: From to 2000-2016

Science.gov (United States)

Kharoufah, Husam; Murray, John; Baxter, Glenn; Wild, Graham

2018-05-01

Human factors have been defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as "about people in their living and working situations; about their relationship with machines, with procedures and with the environment about them; and about their relationships with other people (at work)". Human factors contribute to approximately 75% of aircraft accidents and incidents. As such, understanding their influence is essential to improve safety in the aviation industry. This study examined the different human factors causations in a random sample of over 200 commercial air transport accidents and incidents from 2000 to 2016. The main objective of this study was to identify the principal human factor contributions to aviation accidents and incidents. An exploratory research design was utilised. The qualitative data were recorded in a database, and were coded into categories about the flights (including date, manufacturer, carrier, state of occurrence, etc). These categories were then analysed using Chi-Squared tests to determine which were statistically significant in terms of having an influence on the accidents/incidents. The most significant human factor was found to be situational awareness followed by non-adherence to procedures. In addition, charter operations proved to have a significantly higher rate of human factor related occurrence as compared to other type of operations. A significant finding was that Africa has a high rate of accidents/incidents relative to the amount of traffic and aircraft movements. These findings reflect some of the more noteworthy incidents that have received significant media attention, including Air Asia 8501 on the 28th of December 2014, TransAsia Airways 235 on the 4th of February 2015, and Air France 447 on the 1st of June 2009; these accidents resulted in a significant loss of lives where situational awareness and non-adherence to procedures were significant contributing factors.

Reconstructing the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) accident 30 years after. A unique database of air concentration and deposition measurements over Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Evangeliou, Nikolaos; Hamburger, Thomas; Talerko, Nikolai; Zibtsev, Sergey; Bondar, Yuri; Stohl, Andreas; Balkanski, Yves; Mousseau, Timothy A; Møller, Anders P

2016-09-01

30 years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) accident, its radioactive releases still remain of great interest mainly due to the long half-lives of many radionuclides emitted. Observations from the terrestrial environment, which hosts radionuclides for many years after initial deposition, are important for health and environmental assessments. Furthermore, such measurements are the basis for validation of atmospheric transport models and can be used for constraining the still not accurately known source terms. However, although the "Atlas of cesium deposition on Europe after the Chernobyl accident" (hereafter referred to as "Atlas") has been published since 1998, less than 1% of the direct observations of (137)Cs deposition has been made publicly available. The remaining ones are neither accessible nor traceable to specific data providers and a large fraction of these data might have been lost entirely. The present paper is an effort to rescue some of the data collected over the years following the CNPP accident and make them publicly available. The database includes surface air activity concentrations and deposition observations for (131)I, (134)Cs and (137)Cs measured and provided by Former Soviet Union authorities the years that followed the accident. Using the same interpolation tool as the official authorities, we have reconstructed a deposition map of (137)Cs based on about 3% of the data used to create the Atlas map. The reconstructed deposition map is very similar to the official one, but it has the advantage that it is based exclusively on documented data sources, which are all made available within this publication. In contrast to the official map, our deposition map is therefore reproducible and all underlying data can be used also for other purposes. The efficacy of the database was proved using simulated activity concentrations and deposition of (137)Cs from a Langrangian and a Euleurian transport model. Copyright © 2016. Published by

A human factor analysis of a radiotherapy accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thellier, S.

2009-01-01

Since September 2005, I.R.S.N. studies activities of radiotherapy treatment from the angle of the human and organizational factors to improve the reliability of treatment in radiotherapy. Experienced in nuclear industry incidents analysis, I.R.S.N. analysed and diffused in March 2008, for the first time in France, the detailed study of a radiotherapy accident from the angle of the human and organizational factors. The method used for analysis is based on interviews and documents kept by the hospital. This analysis aimed at identifying the causes of the difference recorded between the dose prescribed by the radiotherapist and the dose effectively received by the patient. Neither verbal nor written communication (intra-service meetings and protocols of treatment) allowed information to be transmitted correctly in order to permit radiographers to adjust the irradiation zones correctly. This analysis highlighted the fact that during the preparation and the carrying out of the treatment, various factors led planned controls to not be performed. Finally, this analysis highlighted the fact that unsolved areas persist in the report over this accident. This is due to a lack of traceability of a certain number of key actions. The article concluded that there must be improvement in three areas: cooperation between the practitioners, control of the actions and traceability of the actions. (author)

Quantifying human and organizational factors in accident management using decision trees: the HORAAM method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baumont, G.; Menage, F.; Schneiter, J.R.; Spurgin, A.; Vogel, A.

2000-01-01

In the framework of the level 2 Probabilistic Safety Study (PSA 2) project, the Institute for Nuclear Safety and Protection (IPSN) has developed a method for taking into account Human and Organizational Reliability Aspects during accident management. Actions are taken during very degraded installation operations by teams of experts in the French framework of Crisis Organization (ONC). After describing the background of the framework of the Level 2 PSA, the French specific Crisis Organization and the characteristics of human actions in the Accident Progression Event Tree, this paper describes the method developed to introduce in PSA the Human and Organizational Reliability Analysis in Accident Management (HORAAM). This method is based on the Decision Tree method and has gone through a number of steps in its development. The first one was the observation of crisis center exercises, in order to identify the main influence factors (IFs) which affect human and organizational reliability. These IFs were used as headings in the Decision Tree method. Expert judgment was used in order to verify the IFs, to rank them, and to estimate the value of the aggregated factors to simplify the quantification of the tree. A tool based on Mathematica was developed to increase the flexibility and the efficiency of the study

A human reliability analysis of the Three Mile power plant accident considering the THERP and ATHEANA methodologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fonseca, Renato Alves da

2004-03-01

The main purpose of this work is the study of human reliability using the THERP (Technique for Human Error Prediction) and ATHEANA methods (A Technique for Human Error Analysis), and some tables and also, from case studies presented on the THERP Handbook to develop a qualitative and quantitative study of nuclear power plant accident. This accident occurred in the TMI (Three Mile Island Unit 2) power plant, PWR type plant, on March 28th, 1979. The accident analysis has revealed a series of incorrect actions, which resulted in the Unit 2 shut down and permanent loss of the reactor. This study also aims at enhancing the understanding of the THERP method and ATHEANA, and of its practical applications. In addition, it is possible to understand the influence of plant operational status on human failures and of these on equipment of a system, in this case, a nuclear power plant. (author)

The human elements in phenomena giving rise to nuclear accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carnino, A.; Raggenbass, A.

1977-01-01

In its search for a high degree of safety, the nuclear industry should take into account the human parameters, which play an important role. This role is reflected in the individual records kept on incidents and analysis of these records, as has been carried out in conventional industry, represents a first attempt to allow for this factor. The first inquiries covering the background of incidents led to a series of studies and action in respect of individual staff members: on the part of operators, education of personnel in relation to their duties (for example, simulation of reactor control) and attempts to find objective selection criteria for certain specific posts; on the part of those responsible for safety, ergonomic studies and studies on human reliability. For effective prevention of accidents it is necessary to move backwards along the causality chains and therefore to study a nuclear facility as a man-machine system in order to discover the greatest number of potential accident factors. The nuclear facility is introduced into an environment which imposes its rules, constraints and checks and a full study of the human element in safety implies that they should be taken into account. The programme of the Nuclear Safety Department of the Institute of Protection and Nuclear Safety includes not only systematic updating of incident records but also special ergonomic studies (maintenance in a radioactive environment), studies of human reliability and overall studies known as safety management studies. (author)

Learning lessons from Natech accidents - the eNATECH accident database

Science.gov (United States)

Krausmann, Elisabeth; Girgin, Serkan

2016-04-01

When natural hazards impact industrial facilities that house or process hazardous materials, fires, explosions and toxic releases can occur. This type of accident is commonly referred to as Natech accident. In order to prevent the recurrence of accidents or to better mitigate their consequences, lessons-learned type studies using available accident data are usually carried out. Through post-accident analysis, conclusions can be drawn on the most common damage and failure modes and hazmat release paths, particularly vulnerable storage and process equipment, and the hazardous materials most commonly involved in these types of accidents. These analyses also lend themselves to identifying technical and organisational risk-reduction measures that require improvement or are missing. Industrial accident databases are commonly used for retrieving sets of Natech accident case histories for further analysis. These databases contain accident data from the open literature, government authorities or in-company sources. The quality of reported information is not uniform and exhibits different levels of detail and accuracy. This is due to the difficulty of finding qualified information sources, especially in situations where accident reporting by the industry or by authorities is not compulsory, e.g. when spill quantities are below the reporting threshold. Data collection has then to rely on voluntary record keeping often by non-experts. The level of detail is particularly non-uniform for Natech accident data depending on whether the consequences of the Natech event were major or minor, and whether comprehensive information was available for reporting. In addition to the reporting bias towards high-consequence events, industrial accident databases frequently lack information on the severity of the triggering natural hazard, as well as on failure modes that led to the hazmat release. This makes it difficult to reconstruct the dynamics of the accident and renders the development of

Retrospective dosimetry of populations exposed to reactor accident: Chernobyl example, lesson for Fukushima

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chumak, Vadim V.

2013-01-01

Follow-up of the Chernobyl accident had included a good deal of retrospective dosimetry and dose reconstruction. Comparison of Chernobyl and Fukushima shows that despite some differences in course and scale of the two accidents, main elements are present in both situations and Chernobyl experience could be quite educative for better understanding and more optimal handling of Fukushima Dai-ichi accident consequences. This paper contains review of dose reconstruction efforts done to date and extensively published in scientific journals and reports. Specifically the following cases are considered: (i) evaluation of individual doses to evacuees; (ii) validation of ecological dosimetric models and ruling out unconfirmed dose rate measurements; dosimetric support of (iii) case–control study of leukemia among Chernobyl clean-up workers (liquidators), and (iv) cohort study of cataracts among liquidators. Due to limited size of this paper the given application cases are rather outlined while more detailed descriptions could be found in relevant publications. Each considered Chernobyl case is commented with respect to possible application to Fukushima Dai-ichi situation. The presented methodological findings and approaches could be used for retrospective assessment of human exposures in Fukushima. -- Highlights: ► Retrospective dosimetry in Chernobyl was applied for evaluation of individual doses to evacuees. ► Retrospective dosimetry in Chernobyl was applied for validation of ecological dosimetric models, rejection dubious dose rate records. ► Retrospective dosimetry in Chernobyl was applied for risk assessment of leukemia among Chernobyl clean-up workers (liquidators). ► Retrospective dosimetry in Chernobyl was applied for study of cataracts among liquidators. ► Experience of dose reconstruction in Chernobyl could be used for retrospective assessment of exposures in Fukushima

Psychophysiological and other factors affecting human performance in accident prevention and investigation. [Comparison of aviation with other industries

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Klinestiver, L.R.

1980-01-01

Psychophysiological factors are not uncommon terms in the aviation incident/accident investigation sequence where human error is involved. It is highly suspect that the same psychophysiological factors may also exist in the industrial arena where operator personnel function; but, there is little evidence in literature indicating how management and subordinates cope with these factors to prevent or reduce accidents. It is apparent that human factors psychophysological training is quite evident in the aviation industry. However, while the industrial arena appears to analyze psychophysiological factors in accident investigations, there is little evidence that established training programs exist for supervisors and operator personnel.

Human migration patterns in Yemen and implications for reconstructing prehistoric population movements.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aida T Miró-Herrans

Full Text Available Population migration has played an important role in human evolutionary history and in the patterning of human genetic variation. A deeper and empirically-based understanding of human migration dynamics is needed in order to interpret genetic and archaeological evidence and to accurately reconstruct the prehistoric processes that comprise human evolutionary history. Current empirical estimates of migration include either short time frames (i.e. within one generation or partial knowledge about migration, such as proportion of migrants or distance of migration. An analysis of migration that includes both proportion of migrants and distance, and direction over multiple generations would better inform prehistoric reconstructions. To evaluate human migration, we use GPS coordinates from the place of residence of the Yemeni individuals sampled in our study, their birthplaces and their parents' and grandparents' birthplaces to calculate the proportion of migrants, as well as the distance and direction of migration events between each generation. We test for differences in these values between the generations and identify factors that influence the probability of migration. Our results show that the proportion and distance of migration between females and males is similar within generations. In contrast, the proportion and distance of migration is significantly lower in the grandparents' generation, most likely reflecting the decreasing effect of technology. Based on our results, we calculate the proportion of migration events (0.102 and mean and median distances of migration (96 km and 26 km for the grandparent's generation to represent early times in human evolution. These estimates can serve to set parameter values of demographic models in model-based methods of prehistoric reconstruction, such as approximate Bayesian computation. Our study provides the first empirically-based estimates of human migration over multiple generations in a developing

Reconstructing human evolution

CERN Multimedia

AUTHOR|(CDS)2074069

1999-01-01

One can reconstruct human evolution using modern genetic data and models based on the mathematical theory of evolution and its four major factors : mutation, natural selection, statistical fluctuations in finite populations (random genetic drift), and migration. Archaeology gives some help on the major dates and events of the process. Chances of studying ancient DNA are very limited but there have been a few successful results. Studying DNA instead of proteins, as was done until a few years ago, and in particular the DNA of mitochondria and of the Y chromosome which are transmitted, respectively, by the maternal line and the paternal line, has greatly simplified the analysis. It is now possible to carry the analysis on individuals, while earlier studies were of necessity based on populations. Also the evolution of ÒcultureÓ (i.e. what we learn from others), in particular that of languages, gives some help and can be greatly enlightened by genetic studies. Even though it is largely based on mechanisms of mut...

Management of accident risks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Compes, P.C.

1987-01-01

The example of the Chernobyl accident and the statistics of the occurrence of accidents make clear the threat to humanity, if one cannot guarantee successful accident prevention in the use and distribution of the projects aimed at. The science of safety, as it is known in the Wuppertal model, makes its contribution to this vital task for the human community. It makes it necessary to create the essential dates and concepts, the methods, principles and techniques based on them and the associated instrumentation. (DG) [de

The reconstruction of thyroid dose following Chernobyl

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stepanenko, V.; Kondrashov, A.; Yaskova, E.; Petin, D.; Skvortsov, V.; Parshkov, E.; Gavrilin, Yu.; Khrousch, V.; Shinkarev, S.; Makarenkova, I.; Volkov, V.; Zvonova, I.; Bratilova, A.; Kaidanovsky, J.; Minenko, V.; Drozdovich, V.; Ulanovsky, A.; Korneev, S.; Heinemann, K.; Pomplun, E.; Hille, R.; Bailiff, A.

1996-01-01

The report presents the overview of several approaches in working out the methods of thyroid internal dose reconstruction following Chernobyl. One of these approaches was developed (IBPh, Moscow; MRRC, Obninsk; IRM, Minsk) using the correlations between the mean dose calculation based on I 131 thyroid content measurements and Cs 137 contamination of territories. The available data on I 131 soil contamination were taken into account. The lack of data on I 131 soil contamination was supposed to be compensated by I 129 measurements in soil samples from contaminated territories. The semiempiric model was developed for dose reconstruction. The comparison of the results obtained by semiempiric model and empirical values are presented. The estimated values of average dose according semiempiric model were used for individual dose reconstruction. The IRH (St.-Petersburg) has developed the following method for individual dose reconstruction: correlation between the total I 131 radioiodine incorporation in thyroid and whole body Cs 137 content during first months after accident. The individual dose reconstruction is also mentioned to be performed using the data on individual milk consumption during first weeks after accident. For evaluation of average doses it is suggested to use the linear correlation: thyroid dose values based on radioiodine thyroid measurements vs Cs 137 contamination, air kerma rate, mean I 131 concentration in the milk. The method for retrospective reconstruction of thyroid dose caused by short-living iodine nuclides released after the Chernobyl accident has been developed by Research Centre, Juelich, Germany. It is based on the constant ratio that these nuclides have with the long-living I 129 . The contamination of soil samples by this nuclide can be used to assess thyroid doses. First results of I 129 contamination values and derived thyroid doses are to be presented

Application of FISH method in evaluation of a radiation accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Mingming; Zheng Siying; Duan Zhikai; Zhang Shuxian; Xu Honglan

2004-01-01

To study effects of long term radiation hazard and explore the possibility of the application of chromosome aberration and FISH method to dose retrospection and reconstruction, FISH method was used to detect biological destination of three accidental victims at 7.5 years after Xinzhou accident. In the meantime, conventional chromosomal aberration, G-banding, CB micronuclei and HPRT gene locus mutation assays were performed. In addition, the growth and development of Victim S, who suffered the radiation accident as a fetus, were examined. And comparison of dose estimations between chromosome aberration and FISH method of the victims was conducted. The results demonstrated that the biological dose estimated by translocation frequency is very close to the imitated dose by the physical way after the accident if enough cells are observed. It is suggested that FISH may be applied to dose retrospection and reconstruction. Obvious chromosomal aberrations still existed in the examined victims at 7.5 years after the accident and displayed good dose correlative dependence. The results also showed that the growth and development of S were basically normal after birth

International programme on the health effects of the Chernobyl accident (IPHECA). 'Epidemiological registry' Pilot project. Reconstruction of absorbed doses from external exposure of the population living in areas of Russia contaminated as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pitkevic, V.A.; Duba, V.V.; Ivanov, V.K.; Tsyb, A.F.

1994-01-01

In order to carry out epidemiological research on the influence of radiation factors on the health of people living in centres of population areas contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl accident, a knowledge of the amount of external and internal exposure to the thyroid gland and the whole body is crucial. After seven years of the Chernobyl accident, an attempt was made to reconstruct the complete dynamic picture of radioactive contamination of Russian territory, taking into consideration current data on the temporal behavior of the source of accidental radionuclide emissions from the reactor where the accident occurred, meteorological conditions at the time, detailed measurements of cesium 137 fall-out density on CIS territory, air exposure dose rate measurements. Such an approach will enable to determine absorbed doses in centers of population, where radiation parameters were not measured at all. 17 refs, 6 figs, 6 tabs, 1 map

Methodology of thyroid dose reconstruction for population of Russia after the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zvonova, I.A.; Balonov, M.I.; Bratilova, A.A.; Vlasov, A.Ju; Pitkevich, V.A.; Vlasov, O.K.; Shishkanov, N.G.

2000-01-01

The Chernobyl accident has provoked radioactive contamination upon such extensive territories that the monitoring of short-lived iodine isotopes and estimation of their influence upon people were performed with a delay or not completely. So for solving the problem of dose estimation for thyroid exposure with iodine radionuclides among the population of contaminated territories, it was necessary to analyze retrospectively the existing data and to develop a model of the thyroid dose reconstruction. The reconstruction procedure for the average for a settlement thyroid dose in Russians has been worked out basing on the following data received in May-June 1986: 44 thousand measurements of I-131 content in the thyroid of inhabitants; 2000 gamma-spectrometric measurements of milk samples in Tula region; about 3500 measurements of total beta-activity in milk samples from Bryansk, Kaluga and Orel regions; over 100 radiochemical analysis of milk samples for I and Cs radionuclides' content; about 14000 thousand polls of inhabitants and local administration authorities upon the regime of behavior, milk consumption, cattle pasture dates and countermeasures in May 1986; the data of Roshydromet upon Cs-137 contamination of soil in settlements. The individual dose estimations by direct measurements of I-131 in the thyroid have been accepted as the basis for dose reconstruction. When counting the I-131 activity in the thyroid the additional radiation from cesium radionuclides distributed in extra-thyroidal tissues were excluded. Without this amendment the doses in the later terms of measurements could be 2-5 times overestimated. Because of the limited input data for dose calculations a formalized model of radioiodine intake into human body was used. The parameters of this model were based upon the analysis of the radiation monitoring data. According to the model daily intake of iodine-131 was constant within 10 days after radioactive fallout, and further on reduced proportionally

Reconstructive dosimetry for cutaneous radiation syndrome

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lima, C.M.A.; Lima, A.R.; Degenhardt, Ä.L.; Da Silva, F.C.A., E-mail: dasilva@ird.gov.br [Instituto de Radioprotecao e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Valverde, N.J. [Fundacao Eletronuclear de Assistencia Medica, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

2015-10-15

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a relatively significant number of radiological accidents have occurred in recent years mainly because of the practices referred to as potentially high-risk activities, such as radiotherapy, large irradiators and industrial radiography, especially in gammagraphy assays. In some instances, severe injuries have occurred in exposed persons due to high radiation doses. In industrial radiography, 80 cases involving a total of 120 radiation workers, 110 members of the public including 12 deaths have been recorded up to 2014. Radiological accidents in industrial practices in Brazil have mainly resulted in development of cutaneous radiation syndrome (CRS) in hands and fingers. Brazilian data include 5 serious cases related to industrial gammagraphy, affecting 7 radiation workers and 19 members of the public; however, none of them were fatal. Some methods of reconstructive dosimetry have been used to estimate the radiation dose to assist in prescribing medical treatment. The type and development of cutaneous manifestations in the exposed areas of a person is the first achievable gross dose estimation. This review article presents the state-of-the-art reconstructive dosimetry methods enabling estimation of local radiation doses and provides guidelines for medical handling of the exposed individuals. The review also presents the Chilean and Brazilian radiological accident cases to highlight the importance of reconstructive dosimetry. (author)

An artificial neural network approach to reconstruct the source term of a nuclear accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giles, J.; Palma, C. R.; Weller, P.

1997-01-01

This work makes use of one of the main features of artificial neural networks, which is their ability to 'learn' from sets of known input and output data. Indeed, a trained artificial neural network can be used to make predictions on the input data when the output is known, and this feedback process enables one to reconstruct the source term from field observations. With this aim, an artificial neural networks has been trained, using the projections of a segmented plume atmospheric dispersion model at fixed points, simulating a set of gamma detectors located outside the perimeter of a nuclear facility. The resulting set of artificial neural networks was used to determine the release fraction and rate for each of the noble gases, iodines and particulate fission products that could originate from a nuclear accident. Model projections were made using a large data set consisting of effective release height, release fraction of noble gases, iodines and particulate fission products, atmospheric stability, wind speed and wind direction. The model computed nuclide-specific gamma dose rates. The locations of the detectors were chosen taking into account both building shine and wake effects, and varied in distance between 800 and 1200 m from the reactor.The inputs to the artificial neural networks consisted of the measurements from the detector array, atmospheric stability, wind speed and wind direction; the outputs comprised a set of release fractions and heights. Once trained, the artificial neural networks was used to reconstruct the source term from the detector responses for data sets not used in training. The preliminary results are encouraging and show that the noble gases and particulate fission product release fractions are well determined

Reconstructive dosimetry and radiation doses evaluation of members of the public due to radiological accident in industrial radiography; Dosimetria reconstrutiva e avaliacao de dose de individuos do publico devido a acidente radiologico em radiografia industrial

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lima, Camila Moreira Araujo de

2016-07-01

Radiological accidents have occurred mainly in the practices recognized as high risk radiological and classified by the IAEA as Categories 1 and 2, and highlighted the radiotherapy, industrial irradiators and industrial radiography. In Brazil, since there were five major cases in industrial radiography, which involved 7 radiation workers and 19 members of the public, causing localized radiation lesions on the hands and fingers. One of these accidents will be the focus of this work. In this accident, a {sup 192}Ir radioactive source was exposed for more than 8 hours in the workplace inside a company, exposing radiation workers, individuals of the public and people from the surrounding facilities, including children of a school. The radioactive source was also handled by a security worker causing severe radiation injuries in the hand and fingers. In this paper, the most relevant and used techniques of reconstructive dosimetry internationally are presented. To estimate the radiation doses received by exposed individuals in various scenarios of radiological accident in focus, the following computer codes were used: Visual Monte Carlo Dose Calculation (VMC), Virtual Environment for Radiological and Nuclear Accidents Simulation (AVSAR) and RADPRO Calculator. Through these codes some radiation doses were estimated, such as, 33.90 Gy in security worker's finger, 4.47 mSv in children in the school and 55 to 160 mSv for workers in the company during the whole day work. It is intended that this work will contribute to the improvement of dose reconstruction methodology for radiological accidents, having then more realist radiation doses. (author)

Accident statistics and the human-factor element.

Science.gov (United States)

Shuckburgh, J S

1975-01-01

The number of fatal accidents involving public transport aircraft has increased significantly in recent years and, because more and more "wide-bodied" aircraft have been coming into service, this has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of fatalities. A combined attack on the problem by all concerned with flight safety is required to improve the situation. The collection and analysis of aircraft accident data can contribute to safety in two ways; by giving an indication of where to concentrate future effort and by showing how successful past efforts have been. An analysis of worldwide accident statistics by phase of flight and causal factor show that the largest percentage of accidents occurs in the approach and landing phase and are caused by "pilot error". Further research is needed to find out why pilots make errors and how such errors can be eliminated.

Procedure on reconstruction of external dose to evacuees at Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakajima, T.; Likhtariov, I.; Repin, V.S.

1992-01-01

An external dose estimation on the Chernobyl accident was carried out using sugar left in two houses at Pripyat-city from before the accident. The external dose to the people evacuated from Pripyat-city after the Chernobyl accident has been estimated using both a data from the sugar-electron spin resonance (ESR) dosimeter and information on the type of buildings and the exposure rates there. In this work, the procedure of the dose estimation for the evacuees in Pripyat-city be reported. Furthermore, the sugar-ESR method will be discussed. The present result good agree with one reported from USSR to IAEA. It has been certified that small crystalline sugar such as granulated sugar is one of the most useful dosimeter in the emergency for the public. (author)

Analysis of human error in occupational accidents in the power plant industries using combining innovative FTA and meta-heuristic algorithms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Omidvari

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Occupational accidents are of the main issues in industries. It is necessary to identify the main root causes of accidents for their control. Several models have been proposed for determining the accidents root causes. FTA is one of the most widely used models which could graphically establish the root causes of accidents. The non-linear function is one of the main challenges in FTA compliance and in order to obtain the exact number, the meta-heuristic algorithms can be used. Material and Method: The present research was done in power plant industries in construction phase. In this study, a pattern for the analysis of human error in work-related accidents was provided by combination of neural network algorithms and FTA analytical model. Finally, using this pattern, the potential rate of all causes was determined. Result: The results showed that training, age, and non-compliance with safety principals in the workplace were the most important factors influencing human error in the occupational accident. Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that human errors can be greatly reduced by training, right choice of workers with regard to the type of occupations, and provision of appropriate safety conditions in the work place.

Parametric Human Body Reconstruction Based on Sparse Key Points.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Ke-Li; Tong, Ruo-Feng; Tang, Min; Qian, Jing-Ye; Sarkis, Michel

2016-11-01

We propose an automatic parametric human body reconstruction algorithm which can efficiently construct a model using a single Kinect sensor. A user needs to stand still in front of the sensor for a couple of seconds to measure the range data. The user's body shape and pose will then be automatically constructed in several seconds. Traditional methods optimize dense correspondences between range data and meshes. In contrast, our proposed scheme relies on sparse key points for the reconstruction. It employs regression to find the corresponding key points between the scanned range data and some annotated training data. We design two kinds of feature descriptors as well as corresponding regression stages to make the regression robust and accurate. Our scheme follows with dense refinement where a pre-factorization method is applied to improve the computational efficiency. Compared with other methods, our scheme achieves similar reconstruction accuracy but significantly reduces runtime.

Dosimetric management during a criticality accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lebaron-Jacobs, L.; Fottorino, R.; Racine, Y.; Miele, A.; Barbry, F.; Briot, F.; Distinguin, S.; Le Goff, J.P.; Berard, P.; Boisson, P.; Cavadore, D.; Lecoix, G.; Persico, M.H.; Rongier, E.; Challeton-De Vathaire, C.; Medioni, R.; Voisin, P.; Exmelin, L.; Flury-Herard, A.; Gaillard-Lecanu, E.; Lemaire, G.; Gonin, M.; Riasse, C.

2008-01-01

A working group from health occupational and clinical biochemistry services on French sites has issued essential data sheets on the guidelines to follow in managing the victims of a criticality accident. Since the priority of the medical management after a criticality accident is to assess the dose and the distribution of dose, some dosimetric investigations have been selected in order to provide a prompt response and to anticipate the final dose reconstruction. Comparison exercises between clinical biochemistry laboratories on French sites were carried out to confirm that each laboratory maintained the required operational methods for hair treatment and the appropriate equipment for 32 P activity in hair and 24 Na activity in blood measurements, and to demonstrate its ability to rapidly provide neutron dose estimates after a criticality accident. As a result, a relation has been assessed to estimate the dose and the distribution of dose according to the neutron spectrum following a criticality accident. (authors)

Comparative study between reconstructed and native human epidermis using nuclear microscopy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ynsa, M.D.; Gontier, E.; Mavon, A.; Moretto, P.; Rosdy, M.

2006-01-01

The physiological status of native skin is suffering from large inter-individual variations, especially in terms of inorganic ions content. For this reason, together with the advent of ethic laws on animal experimentation, reconstructed skin or epidermis models are extensively employed nowadays in penetration studies for cosmetic or pharmacological applications. It has been already verified that reconstructed human epidermis (RHE) has similar physiological mechanisms to native human skin, but until now, there are few studies where the elemental concentrations of both skins, reconstructed and native, are compared. In this work, freeze-dried thin sections of human native skin obtained from surgery have been characterized using PIXE, RBS and STIM at the CENBG nuclear microprobe. RHE samples were treated and analyzed in the same conditions for comparison. The combination of the different imaging and analysis techniques made possible a clear delimitation and identification of skin ultrastructure. The elemental concentrations of P, S, Cl, K and Ca were measured in the different strata. For both skins, concentrations have been compared and significant differences in terms of elemental concentrations have been determined using statistical approaches. Similar physiological characteristics were pointed out in both skin models, in particular the Ca gradient presumably involved in the regulation of the barrier effect

Comparative study between reconstructed and native human epidermis using nuclear microscopy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ynsa, M.D. [Centre d' Etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux-Gradignan, IN2P3-CNRS/Unite Interface Physique-Biologie, BP 120, Le Haut Vigneau, 33175 Gradignan Cedex (France)]. E-mail: ynsa@cenbg.in2p3.fr; Gontier, E. [Centre d' Etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux-Gradignan, IN2P3-CNRS/Unite Interface Physique-Biologie, BP 120, Le Haut Vigneau, 33175 Gradignan Cedex (France); Mavon, A. [Institut de Recherche Pierre FABRE, Castanet Tolosan (France); Moretto, P. [Centre d' Etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux-Gradignan, IN2P3-CNRS/Unite Interface Physique-Biologie, BP 120, Le Haut Vigneau, 33175 Gradignan Cedex (France); Rosdy, M. [SkinEthic Laboratories, 45 rue St. Philippe, 06000 Nice (France)

2006-08-15

The physiological status of native skin is suffering from large inter-individual variations, especially in terms of inorganic ions content. For this reason, together with the advent of ethic laws on animal experimentation, reconstructed skin or epidermis models are extensively employed nowadays in penetration studies for cosmetic or pharmacological applications. It has been already verified that reconstructed human epidermis (RHE) has similar physiological mechanisms to native human skin, but until now, there are few studies where the elemental concentrations of both skins, reconstructed and native, are compared. In this work, freeze-dried thin sections of human native skin obtained from surgery have been characterized using PIXE, RBS and STIM at the CENBG nuclear microprobe. RHE samples were treated and analyzed in the same conditions for comparison. The combination of the different imaging and analysis techniques made possible a clear delimitation and identification of skin ultrastructure. The elemental concentrations of P, S, Cl, K and Ca were measured in the different strata. For both skins, concentrations have been compared and significant differences in terms of elemental concentrations have been determined using statistical approaches. Similar physiological characteristics were pointed out in both skin models, in particular the Ca gradient presumably involved in the regulation of the barrier effect.

Technical, organizational and human-centered requirements for the purpose of accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berning, A.; Fassmann, W.; Preischl, W.

1998-01-01

A catalog of ergonomic recommendations for organizational measures and design of paper documented work aids for accident management situations in nuclear power plants was developed. Attention was given to provide recommendations meeting practical needs and being sufficiently flexible to allow plant specific [aptation. A weight was assigned to each recommendation indicating its importance. The development of the recommendations was based on the state of the art concerning research and practical experience. Results from walk-/talk-through experiments, training and exercises, discussions with on-site experts, and investigations of emergency manuals from German and foreign nuclear power plants were taken into account. The catalog is founded on a bro[ knowledge base covering important aspects. The catalog is intended for qualitative evaluation and design of organizational measures and procedures. The catalog shall assure high quality. The project further provides an important contribution to the standardization of organizational and human centered demands concerning accident management procedures. Thus it can contribute to develop general regulations regarding ergonomic design of accident management measures. (orig.) [de

Radiation accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nenot, J.C.

1996-01-01

Analysis of radiation accidents over a 50 year period shows that simple cases, where the initiating events were immediately recognised, the source identified and under control, the medical input confined to current handling, were exceptional. In many cases, the accidents were only diagnosed when some injuries presented by the victims suggested the radiological nature of the cause. After large-scale accidents, the situation becomes more complicated, either because of management or medical problems, or both. The review of selected accidents which resulted in severe consequences shows that most of them could have been avoided; lack of regulations, contempt for rules, human failure and insufficient training have been identified as frequent initiating parameters. In addition, the situation was worsened because of unpreparedness, insufficient planning, unadapted resources, and underestimation of psychosociological aspects. (author)

RECONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN LUNG MORPHOLOGY MODELS FROM MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGES

Science.gov (United States)

Reconstruction of Human Lung Morphology Models from Magnetic Resonance ImagesT. B. Martonen (Experimental Toxicology Division, U.S. EPA, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709) and K. K. Isaacs (School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27514)

AESJ 5 years activities and issues to be solved for the TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Uetsuka, Hiroshi; Yamamoto, Akio; Saso, Michitaka

2016-01-01

This paper summarizes the measures taken by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) against the Fukushima Daiichi Accident, and its challenges to the task to be addressed in the future. As recommendations by AESJ, the following five items were pointed out in its final report on the survey on the accident: (1) basic matters on nuclear safety, (2) matters on direct causes of accident, (3) organizational matters among background factors, (4) collective matters, and (5) future matters related to environmental remediation. As the commitment to the Fukushima reconstruction, AESJ performed the introduction of decontamination technologies, hosting of interactive forum and symposium session in Fukushima Prefecture, decontamination test of paddy fields, and preparation of an air dose rate map in Fukushima Prefecture. As for the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, AESJ prepared guidelines by applying probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) to tsunami, and revised seismic PRA standards. Since there was a lack in the implementation of multiple protections as one of the background causes of the Fukushima Accident, it summarized 'concept of the implementation of multiple protections.' In addition, it surveyed and examined the accident from the viewpoint of human factors, discussed the importance of accident investigation from the viewpoint of a party in charge, and issued a report. (A.O.)

Surface Reconstruction from Parallel Curves with Application to Parietal Bone Fracture Reconstruction.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Majeed

Full Text Available Maxillofacial trauma are common, secondary to road traffic accident, sports injury, falls and require sophisticated radiological imaging to precisely diagnose. A direct surgical reconstruction is complex and require clinical expertise. Bio-modelling helps in reconstructing surface model from 2D contours. In this manuscript we have constructed the 3D surface using 2D Computerized Tomography (CT scan contours. The fracture part of the cranial vault are reconstructed using GC1 rational cubic Ball curve with three free parameters, later the 2D contours are flipped into 3D with equidistant z component. The constructed surface is represented by contours blending interpolant. At the end of this manuscript a case report of parietal bone fracture is also illustrated by employing this method with a Graphical User Interface (GUI illustration.

A Detection Device for the Signs of Human Life in Accident

Science.gov (United States)

Ning, Li; Ruilan, Zhang; Jian, Liu; Ruirui, Cheng; Yuhong, Diao

2017-12-01

A detection device for the signs of human life in accidents is a device used in emergency situations, such as the crash site. the scene of natural disasters, the battlefield ruins. it designed to detect the life signs of the distress under the injured ambulance vital signs devices. The device can on human vital signs, including pulse, respiration physiological signals to make rapid and accurate response. After some calculations, and after contrast to normal human physiological parameters given warning signals, in order for them to make timely ambulance judgment. In this case the device is required to do gymnastics convenience, ease of movement, power and detection of small flexible easy realization. This device has the maximum protection of the wounded safety significance.

Bioengineered human IAS reconstructs with functional and molecular properties similar to intact IAS

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Jagmohan

2012-01-01

Because of its critical importance in rectoanal incontinence, we determined the feasibility to reconstruct internal anal sphincter (IAS) from human IAS smooth muscle cells (SMCs) with functional and molecular attributes similar to the intact sphincter. The reconstructs were developed using SMCs from the circular smooth muscle layer of the human IAS, grown in smooth muscle differentiation media under sterile conditions in Sylgard-coated tissue culture plates with central Sylgard posts. The basal tone in the reconstructs and its changes were recorded following 0 Ca2+, KCl, bethanechol, isoproterenol, protein kinase C (PKC) activator phorbol 12,13-dibutyrate, and Rho kinase (ROCK) and PKC inhibitors Y-27632 and Gö-6850, respectively. Western blot (WB), immunofluorescence (IF), and immunocytochemical (IC) analyses were also performed. The reconstructs developed spontaneous tone (0.68 ± 0.26 mN). Bethanechol (a muscarinic agonist) and K+ depolarization produced contraction, whereas isoproterenol (β-adrenoceptor agonist) and Y-27632 produced a concentration-dependent decrease in the tone. Maximal decrease in basal tone with Y-27632 and Gö-6850 (each 10−5 M) was 80.45 ± 3.29 and 17.76 ± 3.50%, respectively. WB data with the IAS constructs′ SMCs revealed higher levels of RhoA/ROCK, protein kinase C-potentiated inhibitor or inhibitory phosphoprotein for myosin phosphatase (CPI-17), phospho-CPI-17, MYPT1, and 20-kDa myosin light chain vs. rectal smooth muscle. WB, IF, and IC studies of original SMCs and redispersed from the reconstructs for the relative distribution of different signal transduction proteins confirmed the feasibility of reconstruction of IAS with functional properties similar to intact IAS and demonstrated the development of myogenic tone with critical dependence on RhoA/ROCK. We conclude that it is feasible to bioengineer IAS constructs using human IAS SMCs that behave like intact IAS. PMID:22790596

Lessons learned from accidents investigations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zuniga-Bello, P. [Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT), Mexico City (Mexico); Croft, J. [National Radiological Protection Board (United Kingdom); Glenn, J

1997-12-31

Accidents from three main practices: medical applications, industrial radiography and industrial irradiators are used to illustrate some common causes of accidents and the main lessons to be learned. A brief description of some of these accidents is given. Lessons learned from the described accidents are approached by subjects covering: safety culture, quality assurance, human factors, good engineering practice, defence in depth, security of sources, safety assessment and monitoring and verification compliance. (author)

Lessons learned from accident investigations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zuniga-Bello, P.; Croft, J.R.; Glenn, J.

1998-01-01

Accidents in three main practices - medical applications, industrial radiography and industrial irradiators - are used to illustrate some common causes of accidents and the main lessons to be learned from them. A brief description of some of these accidents is given. Lessons learned from the accidents described are approached bearing in mind: safety culture, quality assurance, human factors, good engineering practice, defence in depth, security of sources, safety assessment and monitoring and verification compliance. (author)

Reconstructed human epidermis: A model to study the barrier function

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barbotteau, Y. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Gontier, E. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Barberet, P. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Cappadoro, M. [Institut de recherche Pierre FABRE, 31320 Castanet Tolosan (France); De Wever, B. [Institut de recherche Pierre FABRE, 31320 Castanet Tolosan (France); Habchi, C. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Incerti, S. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Mavon, A. [SkinEthic Laboratories, 45 rue St. Philippe, 06000 Nice (France); Moretto, P. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France)]. E-mail: moretto@cenbg.in2p3.fr; Pouthier, T. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Smith, R.W. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France); Ynsa, M.D. [CENBG-IN2P3/CNRS, BP 120, 33175 Gradignan cedex (France)

2005-04-01

The use of in vitro reconstructed human epidermis (RHE) by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries is increasing because of its similar physiological mechanisms to native human skin. With the advent of ethic laws on animal experimentation, RHE provides an helpful alternative for the test of formulations. The aim of this study is to check that the RHE mineral status is comparable to that of human native skin by investigating the elemental distributions in the epidermis strata. In addition, possible deleterious effects of the transport on the epidermis ionic content were studied by nuclear microscopy.

Reconstructed human epidermis: A model to study the barrier function

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barbotteau, Y.; Gontier, E.; Barberet, P.; Cappadoro, M.; De Wever, B.; Habchi, C.; Incerti, S.; Mavon, A.; Moretto, P.; Pouthier, T.; Smith, R.W.; Ynsa, M.D.

2005-01-01

The use of in vitro reconstructed human epidermis (RHE) by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries is increasing because of its similar physiological mechanisms to native human skin. With the advent of ethic laws on animal experimentation, RHE provides an helpful alternative for the test of formulations. The aim of this study is to check that the RHE mineral status is comparable to that of human native skin by investigating the elemental distributions in the epidermis strata. In addition, possible deleterious effects of the transport on the epidermis ionic content were studied by nuclear microscopy

Bayesian methods for chromosome dosimetry following a criticality accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brame, R.S.; Groer, P.G.

2003-01-01

Radiation doses received during a criticality accident will be from a combination of fission spectrum neutrons and gamma rays. It is desirable to estimate the total dose, as well as the neutron and gamma doses. Present methods for dose estimation with chromosome aberrations after a criticality accident use point estimates of the neutron to gamma dose ratio obtained from personnel dosemeters and/or accident reconstruction calculations. In this paper a Bayesian approach to dose estimation with chromosome aberrations is developed that allows the uncertainty of the dose ratio to be considered. Posterior probability densities for the total and the neutron and gamma doses were derived. (author)

NASA-ONERA Collaboration on Human Factors in Aviation Accidents and Incidents

Science.gov (United States)

Srivastava, Ashok N.; Fabiani, Patrick

2012-01-01

This is the first annual report jointly prepared by NASA and ONERA on the work performed under the agreement to collaborate on a study of the human factors entailed in aviation accidents and incidents, particularly focused on the consequences of decreases in human performance associated with fatigue. The objective of this agreement is to generate reliable, automated procedures that improve understanding of the levels and characteristics of flight-crew fatigue factors whose confluence will likely result in unacceptable crew performance. This study entails the analyses of numerical and textual data collected during operational flights. NASA and ONERA are collaborating on the development and assessment of automated capabilities for extracting operationally significant information from very large, diverse (textual and numerical) databases; much larger than can be handled practically by human experts.

Selection of the important performance influencing factors for the assessment of human error under accident management situations in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, J. H.; Jung, W. J.

1999-01-01

This paper introduces the process and final results of selection of the important Performance Influencing Factors (PIFs) under emergency operation and accident management situations in nuclear power plants for use in the assessment of human errors. We collected two types of PIF taxonomies, one is the full set PIF list mainly developed for human error analysis, and the other is the PIFs for human reliability analysis (HRA) in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). 5 PIF taxonomies among the full set PIF list and 10 PIF taxonomies among HRA methodologies (CREAM, SLIM, INTENT, were collected in this research. By reviewing and analyzing PIFs selected for HRA methodologies, the criterion could be established for the selection of appropriate PIFs under emergency operation and accident management situations. Based on this selection criteria, a new PIF taxonomy was proposed for the assessment of human error under emergency operation and accident management situations in nuclear power plants

3D Reconstruction of human bones based on dictionary learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Binkai; Wang, Xiang; Liang, Xiao; Zheng, Jinjin

2017-11-01

An effective method for reconstructing a 3D model of human bones from computed tomography (CT) image data based on dictionary learning is proposed. In this study, the dictionary comprises the vertices of triangular meshes, and the sparse coefficient matrix indicates the connectivity information. For better reconstruction performance, we proposed a balance coefficient between the approximation and regularisation terms and a method for optimisation. Moreover, we applied a local updating strategy and a mesh-optimisation method to update the dictionary and the sparse matrix, respectively. The two updating steps are iterated alternately until the objective function converges. Thus, a reconstructed mesh could be obtained with high accuracy and regularisation. The experimental results show that the proposed method has the potential to obtain high precision and high-quality triangular meshes for rapid prototyping, medical diagnosis, and tissue engineering. Copyright © 2017 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Injury protection and accident causation parameters for vulnerable road users based on German In-Depth Accident Study GIDAS.

Science.gov (United States)

Otte, Dietmar; Jänsch, Michael; Haasper, Carl

2012-01-01

Within a study of accident data from GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study), vulnerable road users are investigated regarding injury risk in traffic accidents. GIDAS is the largest in-depth accident study in Germany. Due to a well-defined sampling plan, representativeness with respect to the federal statistics is also guaranteed. A hierarchical system ACASS (Accident Causation Analysis with Seven Steps) was developed in GIDAS, describing the human causation factors in a chronological sequence. The accordingly classified causation factors - derived from the systematic of the analysis of human accident causes ("7 steps") - can be used to describe the influence of accident causes on the injury outcome. The bases of the study are accident documentations over ten years from 1999 to 2008 with 8204 vulnerable road users (VRU), of which 3 different groups were selected as pedestrians n=2041, motorcyclists n=2199 and bicyclists n=3964, and analyzed on collisions with cars and trucks as well as vulnerable road users alone. The paper will give a description of the injury pattern and injury mechanisms of accidents. The injury frequencies and severities are pointed out considering different types of VRU and protective measures of helmet and clothes of the human body. The impact points are demonstrated on the car, following to conclusion of protective measures on the vehicle. Existing standards of protection devices as well as interdisciplinary research, including accident and injury statistics, are described. With this paper, a summarization of the existing possibilities on protective measures for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists is given and discussed by comparison of all three groups of vulnerable road users. Also the relevance of special impact situations and accident causes mainly responsible for severe injuries are pointed out, given the new orientation of research for the avoidance and reduction of accident patterns. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparison of computational to human observer detection for evaluation of CT low dose iterative reconstruction

Science.gov (United States)

Eck, Brendan; Fahmi, Rachid; Brown, Kevin M.; Raihani, Nilgoun; Wilson, David L.

2014-03-01

Model observers were created and compared to human observers for the detection of low contrast targets in computed tomography (CT) images reconstructed with an advanced, knowledge-based, iterative image reconstruction method for low x-ray dose imaging. A 5-channel Laguerre-Gauss Hotelling Observer (CHO) was used with internal noise added to the decision variable (DV) and/or channel outputs (CO). Models were defined by parameters: (k1) DV-noise with standard deviation (std) proportional to DV std; (k2) DV-noise with constant std; (k3) CO-noise with constant std across channels; and (k4) CO-noise in each channel with std proportional to CO variance. Four-alternative forced choice (4AFC) human observer studies were performed on sub-images extracted from phantom images with and without a "pin" target. Model parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood comparison to human probability correct (PC) data. PC in human and all model observers increased with dose, contrast, and size, and was much higher for advanced iterative reconstruction (IMR) as compared to filtered back projection (FBP). Detection in IMR was better than FPB at 1/3 dose, suggesting significant dose savings. Model(k1,k2,k3,k4) gave the best overall fit to humans across independent variables (dose, size, contrast, and reconstruction) at fixed display window. However Model(k1) performed better when considering model complexity using the Akaike information criterion. Model(k1) fit the extraordinary detectability difference between IMR and FBP, despite the different noise quality. It is anticipated that the model observer will predict results from iterative reconstruction methods having similar noise characteristics, enabling rapid comparison of methods.

Reconstruction of genome-scale human metabolic models using omics data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ryu, Jae Yong; Kim, Hyun Uk; Lee, Sang Yup

2015-01-01

used to describe metabolic phenotypes of healthy and diseased human tissues and cells, and to predict therapeutic targets. Here we review recent trends in genome-scale human metabolic modeling, including various generic and tissue/cell type-specific human metabolic models developed to date, and methods......, databases and platforms used to construct them. For generic human metabolic models, we pay attention to Recon 2 and HMR 2.0 with emphasis on data sources used to construct them. Draft and high-quality tissue/cell type-specific human metabolic models have been generated using these generic human metabolic...... refined through gap filling, reaction directionality assignment and the subcellular localization of metabolic reactions. We review relevant tools for this model refinement procedure as well. Finally, we suggest the direction of further studies on reconstructing an improved human metabolic model....

A methodology for analysing human errors of commission in accident scenarios for risk assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, J. H.; Jung, W. D.; Park, J. K

2003-01-01

As the concern on the impact of the operator's inappropriate interventions, so-called Errors Of Commissions(EOCs), on the plant safety has been raised, the interest in the identification and analysis of EOC events from the risk assessment perspective becomes increasing accordingly. To this purpose, we propose a new methodology for identifying and analysing human errors of commission that might be caused from the failures in situation assessment and decision making during accident progressions given an initiating event. The proposed methodology was applied to the accident scenarios of YGN 3 and 4 NPPs, which resulted in about 10 EOC situations that need careful attention

Visual image reconstruction from human brain activity: A modular decoding approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyawaki, Yoichi; Uchida, Hajime; Yamashita, Okito; Sato, Masa-aki; Kamitani, Yukiyasu; Morito, Yusuke; Tanabe, Hiroki C; Sadato, Norihiro

2009-01-01

Brain activity represents our perceptual experience. But the potential for reading out perceptual contents from human brain activity has not been fully explored. In this study, we demonstrate constraint-free reconstruction of visual images perceived by a subject, from the brain activity pattern. We reconstructed visual images by combining local image bases with multiple scales, whose contrasts were independently decoded from fMRI activity by automatically selecting relevant voxels and exploiting their correlated patterns. Binary-contrast, 10 x 10-patch images (2 100 possible states), were accurately reconstructed without any image prior by measuring brain activity only for several hundred random images. The results suggest that our approach provides an effective means to read out complex perceptual states from brain activity while discovering information representation in multi-voxel patterns.

Collective cognition in humans: groups outperform their best members in a sentence reconstruction task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Romain J G Clément

Full Text Available Group-living is widespread among animals and one of the major advantages of group-living is the ability of groups to solve cognitive problems that exceed individual ability. Humans also make use of collective cognition and have simultaneously developed a highly complex language to exchange information. Here we investigated collective cognition of human groups regarding language use in a realistic situation. Individuals listened to a public announcement and had to reconstruct the sentence alone or in groups. This situation is often encountered by humans, for instance at train stations or airports. Using recent developments in machine speech recognition, we analysed how well individuals and groups reconstructed the sentences from a syntactic (i.e., the number of errors and semantic (i.e., the quality of the retrieved information perspective. We show that groups perform better both on a syntactic and semantic level than even their best members. Groups made fewer errors and were able to retrieve more information when reconstructing the sentences, outcompeting even their best group members. Our study takes collective cognition studies to the more complex level of language use in humans.

A Two-Stage Reconstruction Processor for Human Detection in Compressive Sensing CMOS Radar.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsao, Kuei-Chi; Lee, Ling; Chu, Ta-Shun; Huang, Yuan-Hao

2018-04-05

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) radar has recently gained much research attraction because small and low-power CMOS devices are very suitable for deploying sensing nodes in a low-power wireless sensing system. This study focuses on the signal processing of a wireless CMOS impulse radar system that can detect humans and objects in the home-care internet-of-things sensing system. The challenges of low-power CMOS radar systems are the weakness of human signals and the high computational complexity of the target detection algorithm. The compressive sensing-based detection algorithm can relax the computational costs by avoiding the utilization of matched filters and reducing the analog-to-digital converter bandwidth requirement. The orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) is one of the popular signal reconstruction algorithms for compressive sensing radar; however, the complexity is still very high because the high resolution of human respiration leads to high-dimension signal reconstruction. Thus, this paper proposes a two-stage reconstruction algorithm for compressive sensing radar. The proposed algorithm not only has lower complexity than the OMP algorithm by 75% but also achieves better positioning performance than the OMP algorithm especially in noisy environments. This study also designed and implemented the algorithm by using Vertex-7 FPGA chip (Xilinx, San Jose, CA, USA). The proposed reconstruction processor can support the 256 × 13 real-time radar image display with a throughput of 28.2 frames per second.

A Two-Stage Reconstruction Processor for Human Detection in Compressive Sensing CMOS Radar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kuei-Chi Tsao

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS radar has recently gained much research attraction because small and low-power CMOS devices are very suitable for deploying sensing nodes in a low-power wireless sensing system. This study focuses on the signal processing of a wireless CMOS impulse radar system that can detect humans and objects in the home-care internet-of-things sensing system. The challenges of low-power CMOS radar systems are the weakness of human signals and the high computational complexity of the target detection algorithm. The compressive sensing-based detection algorithm can relax the computational costs by avoiding the utilization of matched filters and reducing the analog-to-digital converter bandwidth requirement. The orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP is one of the popular signal reconstruction algorithms for compressive sensing radar; however, the complexity is still very high because the high resolution of human respiration leads to high-dimension signal reconstruction. Thus, this paper proposes a two-stage reconstruction algorithm for compressive sensing radar. The proposed algorithm not only has lower complexity than the OMP algorithm by 75% but also achieves better positioning performance than the OMP algorithm especially in noisy environments. This study also designed and implemented the algorithm by using Vertex-7 FPGA chip (Xilinx, San Jose, CA, USA. The proposed reconstruction processor can support the 256 × 13 real-time radar image display with a throughput of 28.2 frames per second.

Ergonomic (human factors) problems in design of NPPs. A review of TMI and Chernobyl accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang Xiangrui; Zheng Fuyu; Gao Jia

1994-01-01

The general principle of ergonomic in design of NPPs is given and some causes of TMI and Chernobyl accidents from the view point of human factor engineering are reviewed. The paper also introduces some Ergonomic problems in design, operation and management of earlier NPPs. Some ergonomic principles of man-machine systems design have been described. Some proposals have been suggested for improving human reliability in NPPs

Criticality accident in uranium fuel processing plant. Cause analysis and teachings from a viewpoint of a human factor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furuta, Kazuo

2000-01-01

On the JCO criticality accident occurred on September 30, 1999, from relatively earlier time since its occurrence it was elucidated that it was formed not by accident and error operation of apparatus and instruments but by unsafe actions of operators beyond regular manual as its direct cause, and that an organizational factor on business managers and safety administration unable to control such unsafe actions of operators at its background. Then, it was judged to be essential to carry out an accident research from a viewpoint of the human factor (HF) for elucidation on essence of the accident, to establish a 'special workshop on the JCO accident research' to investigate elucidation of the accident cause and countermeasure of reoccurrence at a standpoint of HF. As a result, the essential cause of this accident was summarized that safety information such as ideals, information, teachings and so forth necessary for safety management were failed to share among different organizations. As a teaching of this accident, nuclear energy participants must recognize that safety culture is not finished only in specific organization and range but produced by protecting weathering of danger consciousness and effort of mutually exciting and learning by sharing a safety information beyond different organization, range and time. (G.K.)

Accidents with sulfuric acid

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rajković Miloš B.

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Sulfuric acid is an important industrial and strategic raw material, the production of which is developing on all continents, in many factories in the world and with an annual production of over 160 million tons. On the other hand, the production, transport and usage are very dangerous and demand measures of precaution because the consequences could be catastrophic, and not only at the local level where the accident would happen. Accidents that have been publicly recorded during the last eighteen years (from 1988 till the beginning of 2006 are analyzed in this paper. It is very alarming data that, according to all the recorded accidents, over 1.6 million tons of sulfuric acid were exuded. Although water transport is the safest (only 16.38% of the total amount of accidents in that way 98.88% of the total amount of sulfuric acid was exuded into the environment. Human factor was the common factor in all the accidents, whether there was enough control of the production process, of reservoirs or transportation tanks or the transport was done by inadequate (old tanks, or the accidents arose from human factor (inadequate speed, lock of caution etc. The fact is that huge energy, sacrifice and courage were involved in the recovery from accidents where rescue teams and fire brigades showed great courage to prevent real environmental catastrophes and very often they lost their lives during the events. So, the phrase that sulfuric acid is a real "environmental bomb" has become clearer.

Reconstructing human pancreatic differentiation by mapping specific cell populations during development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ramond, Cyrille; Glaser, Nicolas; Berthault, Claire

2017-01-01

. Endocrine maturation progresses by up-regulating SUSD2 and lowering ECAD levels. Finally, in vitro differentiation of pancreatic endocrine cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells mimics key in vivo events. Our work paves the way to extend our understanding of the origin of mature human pancreatic......Information remains scarce on human development compared to animal models. Here, we reconstructed human fetal pancreatic differentiation using cell surface markers. We demonstrate that at 7weeks of development, the glycoprotein 2 (GP2) marks a multipotent cell population that will differentiate...... cell types and how such lineage decisions are regulated....

Evaluation of an intact, an ACL-deficient, and a reconstructed human knee joint finite element model.

Science.gov (United States)

Vairis, Achilles; Stefanoudakis, George; Petousis, Markos; Vidakis, Nectarios; Tsainis, Andreas-Marios; Kandyla, Betina

2016-02-01

The human knee joint has a three-dimensional geometry with multiple body articulations that produce complex mechanical responses under loads that occur in everyday life and sports activities. Understanding the complex mechanical interactions of these load-bearing structures is of use when the treatment of relevant diseases is evaluated and assisting devices are designed. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee is one of four main ligaments that connects the femur to the tibia and is often torn during sudden twisting motions, resulting in knee instability. The objective of this work is to study the mechanical behavior of the human knee joint and evaluate the differences in its response for three different states, i.e., intact, ACL-deficient, and surgically treated (reconstructed) knee. The finite element models corresponding to these states were developed. For the reconstructed model, a novel repair device was developed and patented by the author in previous work. Static load cases were applied, as have already been presented in a previous work, in order to compare the calculated results produced by the two models the ACL-deficient and the surgically reconstructed knee joint, under the exact same loading conditions. Displacements were calculated in different directions for the load cases studied and were found to be very close to those from previous modeling work and were in good agreement with experimental data presented in literature. The developed finite element model for both the intact and the ACL-deficient human knee joint is a reliable tool to study the kinematics of the human knee, as results of this study show. In addition, the reconstructed human knee joint model had kinematic behavior similar to the intact knee joint, showing that such reconstruction devices can restore human knee stability to an adequate extent.

The Radiological Accident in Lia, Georgia

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2014-12-15

The use of radioactive material offers a wide range of benefits to medicine, research and industry throughout the world. Precautions are necessary, however, to limit the exposure of people to the radiation emitted. Where the amount of radioactive material is substantial, as in the case of radiotherapy or industrial radiography sources, great care is required to prevent accidents which could have severe consequences. Nevertheless, in spite of the precautions taken, serious accidents involving radiation sources continue to occur, albeit infrequently. The IAEA conducts follow-up reviews of such serious accidents to provide an account of their circumstances and consequences, from which organizations with responsibilities for radiation protection, safety of sources and emergency preparedness and response may learn. A serious radiological accident occurred in Georgia on 2 December 2001, when three inhabitants of the village of Lia found two metal objects in the forest while collecting firewood. These objects were {sup 90}Sr sources with an activity of 1295 TBq. The three inhabitants used the objects as heaters when spending the night in the forest. The major cause of the accident was the improper and unauthorized abandonment of radiation sources in Georgia and the absence of clear labels or radiation signs on the sources warning of the potential radiation hazard. Under the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (Assistance Convention), the Georgian authorities requested assistance from the IAEA to advise on the dose assessment, source recovery and medical management of those involved in the accident. This publication describes the circumstances and events surrounding the accident, its management and the medical treatment of the people exposed. It also describes the dose reconstruction calculations and biodosimetry assessments conducted. A number of uncertainties remain relating to some details of the accident. However

The Radiological Accident in Lia, Georgia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2014-12-01

The use of radioactive material offers a wide range of benefits to medicine, research and industry throughout the world. Precautions are necessary, however, to limit the exposure of people to the radiation emitted. Where the amount of radioactive material is substantial, as in the case of radiotherapy or industrial radiography sources, great care is required to prevent accidents which could have severe consequences. Nevertheless, in spite of the precautions taken, serious accidents involving radiation sources continue to occur, albeit infrequently. The IAEA conducts follow-up reviews of such serious accidents to provide an account of their circumstances and consequences, from which organizations with responsibilities for radiation protection, safety of sources and emergency preparedness and response may learn. A serious radiological accident occurred in Georgia on 2 December 2001, when three inhabitants of the village of Lia found two metal objects in the forest while collecting firewood. These objects were 90 Sr sources with an activity of 1295 TBq. The three inhabitants used the objects as heaters when spending the night in the forest. The major cause of the accident was the improper and unauthorized abandonment of radiation sources in Georgia and the absence of clear labels or radiation signs on the sources warning of the potential radiation hazard. Under the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (Assistance Convention), the Georgian authorities requested assistance from the IAEA to advise on the dose assessment, source recovery and medical management of those involved in the accident. This publication describes the circumstances and events surrounding the accident, its management and the medical treatment of the people exposed. It also describes the dose reconstruction calculations and biodosimetry assessments conducted. A number of uncertainties remain relating to some details of the accident. However, sufficient

Radiological accidents potentially important to human health risk in the U.S. Department of Energy waste management program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mueller, C.; Roglans-Ribas, J.; Folga, S.; Nabelssi, B.; Jackson, R.

1995-01-01

Human health risks as a consequence of potential radiological releases resulting from plausible accident scenarios constitute an important consideration in the US Department of Energy (DOE) national program to manage the treatment, storage, and disposal of wastes. As part of this program, the Office of Environmental Management (EM) is currently preparing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that evaluates the risks that could result from managing five different waste types. This paper (1) briefly reviews the overall approach used to assess process and facility accidents for the EM PEIS; (2) summarizes the key inventory, storage, and treatment characteristics of the various DOE waste types important to the selection of accidents; (3) discusses in detail the key assumptions in modeling risk-dominant accidents; and (4) relates comparative source term results and sensitivities

Accident management insights after the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Degueldre, Didier; Viktorov, Alexandre; Tuomainen, Minna; Ducamp, Francois; Chevalier, Sophie; Guigueno, Yves; Tasset, Daniel; Heinrich, Marcus; Schneider, Matthias; Funahashi, Toshihiro; Hotta, Akitoshi; Kajimoto, Mitsuhiro; Chung, Dae-Wook; Kuriene, Laima; Kozlova, Nadezhda; Zivko, Tomi; Aleza, Santiago; Jones, John; McHale, Jack; Nieh, Ho; Pascal, Ghislain; ); Nakoski, John; Neretin, Victor; Nezuka, Takayoshi; )

2014-01-01

events and accidents at NPPs, and what additional measures should be considered as an accident progresses to the severe accident stage. Insights are provided on the experiences and practices existing or being proposed in the NEA member states, as well as new findings from post-Fukushima studies. Emphasis is placed on identifying commendable practices that support enhanced and integrated on-site accident management response and decision-making by NPP operators. The report provides information (including commendable practices) useful for regulatory authorities to consider as they implement enhancements to their regulatory framework in the area of integrated accident management building on the lessons learnt from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident. The report's insights also should be useful to regulatory authorities, operating organisations and others in the nuclear safety community for addressing accident management issues such as procedures and guidelines, equipment, infrastructure and instrumentation, and human and organisational resources. Factors such as accidents involving spent fuel pools, multi-unit aspects of accident management, the interface between onsite and off-site organisations and resources, and degradation of the surrounding infrastructure are also discussed. (authors)

Reconstruction of partially amputated external ear with costal cartilage graft: case report.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunelli, A; Bottini, D J; Cervelli, V; Cervelli, G; Grimaldi, M

2004-06-01

Many causes are responsible for secondary anomalies of the outer ear, such as: car accidents, sport- or work-related accidents, assaults, bites from animals or humans, benign or malignant tumours, burns and the effects of surgical interventions of the ear (plastic surgery on the ear or attempts at correction of primary malformations of the ear). The anatomical complexity of the ear makes its reconstruction particularly complicated with post-operative results that are often disappointing. The Authors describe their experience in the reconstruction of a partially amputated outer ear following a dog bite. The therapeutic protocol required various surgical stages. Initially, a cutaneous expander was applied at the level of the mastoid in order to ensure a sufficient quantity of local skin. The second stage was to remove cartilage from the ribs, followed by construction of a cartilaginous model of the ear and its insertion into the subcutaneous mastoid region after removal of the cutaneous expander and any residual ear cartilage. The last stage was to separate the neo-formed outer ear from the mastoid skin with the insertion of a cartilage graft to the posterior region of the reconstructed ear. This graft was covered by the occipital fascia rotated at 180 degrees and by a skin graft removed from the pubis. The postoperative result was satisfactory with recuperation of a good aesthetic appearance of the ear. Aim of the present report is to describe the surgical technique employed in the reconstruction of secondary anomalies of the ear and to highlight errors committed during this procedure. These considerations have allowed us to stress some fundamental elements in the reconstruction of the ear. In particular, the watershed was the awareness that we had to create a cartilaginous model that respected, as far as possible, the anatomy of the outer ear with all its ridges, trenches and cavities. This as well as ensuring a sufficient quantity of local skin in order to cover

United States-assisted studies on dose reconstruction in the former Soviet Union

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anspaugh, L.R.; Bouville, A.

1995-12-01

Following the Chernobyl accident, the US and the USSR entered into an agreement to work on the safety of civilian nuclear reactors; one aspect of that work was to study the environmental transport and health effects of radionuclides released by the accident. After the break-up of the USSR separate agreements were established between the US and Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia to continue work on dose reconstruction and epidemiologic studies of health effects from exposure to external radiation and the incorporation of radionuclides. Studies in Belarus and Ukraine related to the Chernobyl accident now emphasize epidemiologic: studies of childhood-thyroid cancer and leukemia, and eye-lens-cataract formation in liquidators. Supporting studies on dose reconstruction emphasize a variety of ecological, physical, and biological techniques. Studies being conducted in Russia currently emphasize health effects in the workers and the population around the Mayak Industrial Association. As this production complex is an analogue of the US Hanford Works, advantage is being taken of the US experience in conducting a similar, recently completed dose-reconstruction study. In all cases the primary work on dose reconstruction is being performed by scientists from the former Soviet Union. US assistance is in the form of expert consultation and participation, exchange visits, provision of supplies and equipment, and other forms of local assistance

Accidents - Chernobyl accident; Accidents - accident de Tchernobyl

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2004-07-01

This file is devoted to the Chernobyl accident. It is divided in four parts. The first part concerns the accident itself and its technical management. The second part is relative to the radiation doses and the different contaminations. The third part reports the sanitary effects, the determinists ones and the stochastic ones. The fourth and last part relates the consequences for the other European countries with the case of France. Through the different parts a point is tackled with the measures taken after the accident by the other countries to manage an accident, the cooperation between the different countries and the groups of research and studies about the reactors safety, and also with the international medical cooperation, specially for the children, everything in relation with the Chernobyl accident. (N.C.)

Current status of tissue engineering applied to bladder reconstruction in humans.

Science.gov (United States)

Gasanz, C; Raventós, C; Morote, J

2018-01-11

Bladder reconstruction is performed to replace or expand the bladder. The intestine is used in standard clinical practice for tissue in this procedure. The complications of bladder reconstruction range from those of intestinal resection to those resulting from the continuous contact of urine with tissue not prepared for this contact. In this article, we describe and classify the various biomaterials and cell cultures used in bladder tissue engineering and reviews the studies performed with humans. We conducted a review of literature published in the PubMed database between 1950 and 2017, following the principles of the PRISM declaration. Numerous in vitro and animal model studies have been conducted, but only 18 experiments have been performed with humans, with a total of 169 patients. The current evidence suggests that an acellular matrix, a synthetic polymer with urothelial and autologous smooth muscle cells attached in vitro or stem cells would be the most practical approach for experimental bladder reconstruction. Bladder replacement or expansion without using intestinal tissue is still a challenge, despite progress in the manufacture of biomaterials and the development of cell therapy. Well-designed studies with large numbers of patients and long follow-up times are needed to establish an effective clinical translation and standardisation of the check-up functional tests. Copyright © 2017 AEU. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

The consequences of Chernobyl accident

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ion Chioșilă

2016-12-01

Full Text Available These days marks 30 years since the Chernobyl nuclear accident, followed by massive radioactive contamination of the environment and human in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and resulted in many deaths among people who intervened to decrease the effects of the nuclear disaster. The 26 April 1986 nuclear accident contaminated all European countries, but at a much lower level, without highlighted consequences on human health. In special laboratories, the main radionuclides (I-131, Cs-137, Cs-134 and Sr-90 were also analyzed in Romania from environmental samples, food, even human subjects. These radionuclides caused the population to receive a low dose of about 1 mSv in 1986 that is half of the dose of the natural background radiation (2.4 mSv per year. As in all European countries (excluding Ukraine, Belarus and Russia this dose of about 1 mSv fell rapidly by 1990, reaching levels close to ones before the accident at the nuclear tests.

Lessons of TEPCO's Fukushima accident from human and organizational aspects and challenge for nuclear safety reform

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kawano, Akira

2013-01-01

The author participated in international experts' meeting held by IAEA on May 21, 2013 and presented the paper focusing on human and organizational aspects of the Fukushima nuclear accident. It clarified TEPCO's basic recognition: 'The cause of the accident should not be treated merely as a natural disaster due to an enormous tsunami being something difficult to anticipate and we believe it is necessary to seriously acknowledge the result that TEPCO failed to avoid an accident which might have been avoided if ample preparations had been made in advance with thorough use of human intellect' and then reconsidered the Fukushima nuclear accident: 'could we predict an enormous tsunami and take whatever countermeasures?' and 'could we respond to the accident better?' for the worldwide operators to avoid such an accident, which moved meeting's participants deeply. Presentation's contents followed 'Reassessment of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident and Nuclear Safety Reform Plan' published by TEPCO on March 29. This article described outline of the presentation. Though the only way to explore the possibility to save Unit 1 was that operators could bravely go up to the 4th floor of reactor building and open the isolation valves to start IC, it was given up without any clear communication among key decision makers for confirming the IC operational status. As for Unit 3, operators could not achieve thorough focus on ensuring core cooling such that proactive transfer from RCIC/HPCI to low pressure water injection was not challenged, mainly because of low trust on Diesel/Driven Fire Protection Pump (DDFP). During the design stage and afterward, ample consideration was not given to common cause failures originating in external events, which led to a severe situation where almost all the power supplies and safety system functions were lost. Continuous efforts to reduce risks were not ample, including the collection, analysis and utilization of information on safety enhancement

Development of integrated accident management assessment technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jung, Won Dea; Ha, Jae Joo; Jin, Young Ho

2002-04-01

This project aims to develop critical technologies for accident management through securing evaluation frameworks and supporting tools, in order to enhance capabilities coping with severe accidents. For the research goal, firstly under the viewpoint of accident prevention, on-line risk monitoring system and the analysis framework for human error have been developed. Secondly, the training/supporting systems including the training simulator and the off-site risk evaluation system have been developed to enhance capabilities coping with severe accidents. Four kinds of research results have been obtained from this project. Firstly, the framework and taxonomy for human error analysis has been developed for accident management. As the second, the supporting system for accident managements has been developed. Using data that are obtained through the evaluation of off-site risk for Younggwang site, the risk database as well as the methodology for optimizing emergency responses has been constructed. As the third, a training support system, SAMAT, has been developed, which can be used as a training simulator for severe accident management. Finally, on-line risk monitoring system, DynaRM, has been developed for Ulchin 3 and 4 unit

Utilization of reconstructed cultured human skin models as an alternative skin for permeation studies of chemical compounds

OpenAIRE

Kano, Satoshi; 藤堂, 浩明; 杉江, 謙一; 藤本, 英哲; 中田, 圭一; 徳留, 嘉寛; 橋本, フミ惠; 杉林, 堅次

2010-01-01

Two reconstructed human skin models, EpiskinSM and EpiDermTM, have been approved as alternative membranes for skin corrosive/irritation experiments due to their close correlation with animal skin. Such reconstructed human skin models were evaluated as alternative membranes for skin permeation experiments. Seven drugs with different lipophilicities and almost the same molecular weight were used as test penetrants. Relationships were investigated between permeability coefficients (P values) of ...

Retrospective reconstruction of personal doses using mobile phones

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ekendahl, Daniela

2011-01-01

Mobile phones are among objects usable for retrospective reconstruction of doses received by persons irradiated from serious radiation accidents or terrorist acts involving radioactivity. In this respect, it is an advantage of mobile phones that they are often worn close to the body and are used by the majority of population. Like other portable electronic devices, mobile phones contain electronic components which can include ceramic materials exhibiting radiation induced luminescence. Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) is an example; its layers are often used in chip resistors. This work summarizes the results of a pilot study investigating the dosimetric potential of Al2O3 measured via thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). A trial dose reconstruction performed with two mobile phones is described. It is shown that the material exhibits favourable dosimetric properties and the method is sufficiently accurate and operative for personal accident dosimetry purposes. (orig.)

Three-dimensional reconstructions of intrahepatic bile duct tubulogenesis in human liver

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestentoft, Peter S; Jelnes, Peter; Hopkinson, Branden M

2011-01-01

BACKGROUND: During liver development, intrahepatic bile ducts are thought to arise by a unique asymmetric mode of cholangiocyte tubulogenesis characterized by a series of remodeling stages. Moreover, in liver diseases, cells lining the Canals of Hering can proliferate and generate new hepatic...... in normal liver and in the extensive ductular reactions originating from intrahepatic bile ducts and branching into the parenchyma of the acetaminophen intoxicated liver. In the developing human liver, three-dimensional reconstructions using multiple marker proteins confirmed that the human intrahepatic...

Accident reconstruction to analyze impact of injured drivers during the collision. Ankle fracture in the car-to-car offset frontal collision; Join no jusho jokyo ni kansuru jiko saigen. Joyosha doshi no offset zenmen shototsuji no ashi kansetsu kossetsu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sakurai, M [Japan Automobile Research Institute Inc., Tsukuba (Japan)

1997-10-01

An accident reconstruction test of car-to-car crash was conducted in order to analyze the impact on the driver in the offset head-on collision. The ankle fracture of the driver resulting from the accident was examined with the test results and the accident data. The test results of the car-to-car crashes indicated that the belted driver`s ankle would have fractured in the early stage of the crash. The detailed information from the accident data, especially the cars` interior deformation and the driver`s X-ray photographs, was also very important in analyzing injury mechanisms of the ankle/foot region. The above results suggested an injury mechanism that the ankle joint fracture was due to dorsiflexion and valgus resulting from the impact and intrusion of the toeboard in the early stage of the crash. 12 refs., 11 figs.

Safety culture and the accident at Three Mile Island

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Erp, Jan B. van

2002-01-01

Prior to the accident at Three Mile Island, little attention was being paid to the human role in the safe operation of civilian nuclear power plants. The investigation of the TMI accident showed that its root causes were primarily human-related. The Kemeny Report on the TMI accident does not use the term 'safety culture'; however, it fully identifies all relevant aspects of safety culture. It was only after the accident at Chernobyl that the term 'safety culture' came into widespread use. However, it should be noted that, during the years after TMI and before Chernobyl, already major changes had been instituted concerning human factors and human reliability in the civilian nuclear energy programs of many countries. Greater credit should be given to the remarkable insights developed by the Kemeny Commission as contained in the Kemeny Report. (author)

Contribution to evaluating nuclear power plant accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Razga, J.; Horacek, P.

1990-01-01

Large-scale accidents pose the highest risk in the use of nuclear power. They are the major factor that has to be taken into account when assessing the effect of nuclear power plants on human health and on the environment. In Czechoslovak conditions, the effectiveness of provisions made to reduce the hazard of large-scale nuclear power plant accidents must be considered from the following aspects: effect on human health, consequences of long-term disabling of the infrastructure, potential of human and material reserves in coping with the accident, consequences of power failure for the electricity system, effect on agricultural production and catering, risk of ground and surface water contamination in the Labe or Danube river basin, and international political aspects. (Z.M.). 3 tabs., 18 refs

Biological effects of radiation accidents on humans. September 1970-February 1990 (a Bibliography from the NTIS data base). Report for September 1970-February 1990

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1990-03-01

This bibliography contains citations concerning the impact of radiation accidents on humans. Radiation exposure assessment for determining appropriate medical treatment is discussed. The effects of ingesting food or inhaling air irradiated by accident fallout are considered. Follow-up studies of the survivors of specific nuclear accidents are included in an attempt to evaluate long and short term health effects of accidents. (This updated bibliography contains 224 citations, 62 of which are new entries to the previous edition.)

Realtime Reconstruction of an Animating Human Body from a Single Depth Camera.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yin; Cheng, Zhi-Quan; Lai, Chao; Martin, Ralph R; Dang, Gang

2016-08-01

We present a method for realtime reconstruction of an animating human body,which produces a sequence of deforming meshes representing a given performance captured by a single commodity depth camera. We achieve realtime single-view mesh completion by enhancing the parameterized SCAPE model.Our method, which we call Realtime SCAPE, performs full-body reconstruction without the use of markers.In Realtime SCAPE, estimations of body shape parameters and pose parameters, needed for reconstruction, are decoupled. Intrinsic body shape is first precomputed for a given subject, by determining shape parameters with the aid of a body shape database. Subsequently, per-frame pose parameter estimation is performed by means of linear blending skinning (LBS); the problem is decomposed into separately finding skinning weights and transformations. The skinning weights are also determined offline from the body shape database,reducing online reconstruction to simply finding the transformations in LBS. Doing so is formulated as a linear variational problem;carefully designed constraints are used to impose temporal coherence and alleviate artifacts. Experiments demonstrate that our method can produce full-body mesh sequences with high fidelity.

Diffusion Capillary Phantom vs. Human Data: Outcomes for Reconstruction Methods Depend on Evaluation Medium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah D. Lichenstein

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Diffusion MRI provides a non-invasive way of estimating structural connectivity in the brain. Many studies have used diffusion phantoms as benchmarks to assess the performance of different tractography reconstruction algorithms and assumed that the results can be applied to in vivo studies. Here we examined whether quality metrics derived from a common, publically available, diffusion phantom can reliably predict tractography performance in human white matter tissue. Material and Methods: We compared estimates of fiber length and fiber crossing among a simple tensor model (diffusion tensor imaging, a more complicated model (ball-and-sticks and model-free (diffusion spectrum imaging, generalized q-sampling imaging reconstruction methods using a capillary phantom and in vivo human data (N=14. Results: Our analysis showed that evaluation outcomes differ depending on whether they were obtained from phantom or human data. Specifically, the diffusion phantom favored a more complicated model over a simple tensor model or model-free methods for resolving crossing fibers. On the other hand, the human studies showed the opposite pattern of results, with the model-free methods being more advantageous than model-based methods or simple tensor models. This performance difference was consistent across several metrics, including estimating fiber length and resolving fiber crossings in established white matter pathways. Conclusions: These findings indicate that the construction of current capillary diffusion phantoms tends to favor complicated reconstruction models over a simple tensor model or model-free methods, whereas the in vivo data tends to produce opposite results. This brings into question the previous phantom-based evaluation approaches and suggests that a more realistic phantom or simulation is necessary to accurately predict the relative performance of different tractography reconstruction methods. Acronyms: BSM: ball-and-sticks model; d

Radiological accidents: education for prevention and confrontation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cardenas Herrera, Juan; Fernandez Gomez, Isis Maria

2008-01-01

The purpose of this work is to train and inform on radiological accidents as a preventive measure to improve the people life quality. Radiological accidents are part of the events of technological origin which are composed of nuclear and radiological accidents. As a notable figure is determined that there have been 423 radiological accidents from 1944 to 2005 and among the causes prevail industrial accidents, by irradiations, medical accidents and of laboratories, among others. Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru are some where most accidents have occurred by radioactivity. The radiological accidents can have sociological, environmental, economic, social and political consequences. In addition, there are scenarios of potential nuclear accidents and in them the potential human consequences. Also, the importance of the organization and planning in a nuclear emergency is highlighted. Finally, the experience that Cuba has lived on the subject of radiological accidents is described [es

Long-term effects of ionizing radiation after the Chernobyl accident: Possible contribution of historic dose.

Science.gov (United States)

Omar-Nazir, Laila; Shi, Xiaopei; Moller, Anders; Mousseau, Timothy; Byun, Soohyun; Hancock, Samuel; Seymour, Colin; Mothersill, Carmel

2018-08-01

The impact of the Chernobyl NPP accident on the environment is documented to be greater than expected, with higher mutation rates than expected at the current, chronic low dose rate. In this paper we suggest that the historic acute exposure and resulting non-targeted effects (NTE) such as delayed mutations and genomic instability could account at least in part for currently measured mutation rates and provide an initial test of this concept. Data from Møller and Mousseau on the phenotypic mutation rates of Chernobyl birds 9-11 generations post the Chernobyl accident were used and the reconstructed dose response for mutations was compared with delayed reproductive death dose responses (as a measure of genomic instability) in cell cultures exposed to a similar range of doses. The dose to birds present during the Chernobyl NPP accident was reconstructed through the external pathway due to Cs-137 with an estimate of the uncertainty associated with such reconstruction. The percentage of Chernobyl birds several generations after the accident without mutations followed the general shape of the clonogenic survival percentage of the progeny of irradiated cells, and it plateaued at low doses. This is the expected result if NTE of radiation are involved. We suggest therefore, that NTE induced by the historic dose may play a role in generating mutations in progeny many generations following the initial disaster. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The importance of human performance and procedures in limiting severe accident risks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Higgins, J.C.

1990-01-01

Due to the defense in depth concept and redundancy in safety systems utilized, complex industrial plants, such as nuclear power plants (NPPs) can be operated safely. This capability has been demonstrated by many years of safe operation by numerous NPPs in the US and abroad. However, the occurrence of severe accidents has also demonstrated that constant vigilance in a number of areas is necessary to ensure continued safe operation. The areas noted as particularly important are Design, Organization and Management, Maintenance, and Operations (Human Performance). 18 refs

Public transportation development and traffic accident prevention in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sutanto Soehodho

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Traffic accidents have long been known as an iceberg for comprehending the discrepancies of traffic management and entire transportation systems. Figures detailing traffic accidents in Indonesia, as is the case in many other countries, show significantly high numbers and severity levels; these types of totals are also evident in Jakarta, the highest-populated city in the country. While the common consensus recognizes that traffic accidents are the results of three different factor types, namely, human factors, vehicle factors, and external factors (including road conditions, human factors have the strongest influence—and figures on a worldwide scale corroborate that assertion. We, however, try to pinpoint the issues of non-human factors in light of increasing traffic accidents in Indonesia, where motorbike accidents account for the majority of incidents. We then consider three important pillars of action: the development of public transportation, improvement of the road ratio, and traffic management measures.

Reconstruction of 137Cs activity in the ocean following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident

Science.gov (United States)

Tsumune, Daisuke; Aoyama, Michio; Tsubono, Takaki; Tateda, Yutaka; Misumi, Kazuhiro; Hayami, Hiroshi; Toyoda, Yasuhiro; Maeda, Yoshiaki; Yoshida, Yoshikatsu; Uematsu, Mitsuo

2014-05-01

A series of accidents at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 resulted in the release of radioactive materials to the ocean by two major pathways, direct release from the accident site and atmospheric deposition. We reconstructed spatiotemporal variability of 137Cs activity in the ocean by the comparison model simulations and observed data. We employed a regional scale and the North Pacific scale oceanic dispersion models, an atmospheric transport model, a sediment transport model, a dynamic biological compartment model for marine biota and river runoff model to investigate the oceanic contamination. Direct releases of 137Cs were estimated for more than 2 years after the accident by comparing simulated results and observed activities very close to the site. The estimated total amounts of directly released 137Cs was 3.6±0.7 PBq. Directly release rate of 137Cs decreased exponentially with time by the end of December 2012 and then, was almost constant. The daily release rate of 137Cs was estimated to be 3.0 x 1010 Bq day-1 by the end of September 2013. The activity of directly released 137Cs was detectable only in the coastal zone after December 2012. Simulated 137Cs activities attributable to direct release were in good agreement with observed activities, a result that implies the estimated direct release rate was reasonable, while simulated 137Cs activities attributable to atmospheric deposition were low compared to measured activities. The rate of atmospheric deposition onto the ocean was underestimated because of a lack of measurements of dose rate and air activity of 137Cs over the ocean when atmospheric deposition rates were being estimated. Observed 137Cs activities attributable to atmospheric deposition in the ocean helped to improve the accuracy of simulated atmospheric deposition rates. Although there is no observed data of 137Cs activity in the ocean from 11 to 21 March 2011, observed data of

Report on a radiotherapy underdose accident

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Christodoulides, G; Christofides, S [Medical Physics Department, Nicosia General Hospital, 1450 Nicosia (Cyprus)

1999-12-31

Reporting information on accidents and incidents involving radiation sources provides a body of knowledge which can help to prevent accidents of a similar nature. Accident information has to be made available to users, manufacturers and regulators; An international effort to pool and analyse incident and accident information will provide more complete and reliable indicators of root causes and trends and recommendations for future accident avoidance. An accident due to human error involving a superficial x-ray therapy machine and patients treated for postoperative breast cancer is reported here. 43 women receiving radiotherapy treatment have received significantly less radiation dose than the prescribed dose. The worst dose percentage within the radiation field was 20% of the prescribed dose. The worst dose percentage on the operation scar of the breast was 52% of the prescribed radiation dose. The response to accidents/incidents in radiotherapy is discussed. (authors) 4 refs., 5 figs., 1 tabs.

Key Characteristics of Combined Accident including TLOFW accident for PSA Modeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Bo Gyung; Kang, Hyun Gook [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Yoon, Ho Joon [Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research, Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)

2015-05-15

The conventional PSA techniques cannot adequately evaluate all events. The conventional PSA models usually focus on single internal events such as DBAs, the external hazards such as fire, seismic. However, the Fukushima accident of Japan in 2011 reveals that very rare event is necessary to be considered in the PSA model to prevent the radioactive release to environment caused by poor treatment based on lack of the information, and to improve the emergency operation procedure. Especially, the results from PSA can be used to decision making for regulators. Moreover, designers can consider the weakness of plant safety based on the quantified results and understand accident sequence based on human actions and system availability. This study is for PSA modeling of combined accidents including total loss of feedwater (TLOFW) accident. The TLOFW accident is a representative accident involving the failure of cooling through secondary side. If the amount of heat transfer is not enough due to the failure of secondary side, the heat will be accumulated to the primary side by continuous core decay heat. Transients with loss of feedwater include total loss of feedwater accident, loss of condenser vacuum accident, and closure of all MSIVs. When residual heat removal by the secondary side is terminated, the safety injection into the RCS with direct primary depressurization would provide alternative heat removal. This operation is called feed and bleed (F and B) operation. Combined accidents including TLOFW accident are very rare event and partially considered in conventional PSA model. Since the necessity of F and B operation is related to plant conditions, the PSA modeling for combined accidents including TLOFW accident is necessary to identify the design and operational vulnerabilities.The PSA is significant to assess the risk of NPPs, and to identify the design and operational vulnerabilities. Even though the combined accident is very rare event, the consequence of combined

Reconstruction of the mouse extrahepatic biliary tree using primary human extrahepatic cholangiocyte organoids

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sampaziotis, Fotios; Justin, Alexander W; Tysoe, Olivia C

2017-01-01

The treatment of common bile duct (CBD) disorders, such as biliary atresia or ischemic strictures, is restricted by the lack of biliary tissue from healthy donors suitable for surgical reconstruction. Here we report a new method for the isolation and propagation of human cholangiocytes from....... The resulting bioengineered tissue can reconstruct the gallbladder wall and repair the biliary epithelium following transplantation into a mouse model of injury. Furthermore, bioengineered artificial ducts can replace the native CBD, with no evidence of cholestasis or occlusion of the lumen. In conclusion, ECOs...

Radiation dose to human and non-human biota in the republic of Korea resulting from the Fukushima nuclear accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Keum, Dong Kwon; Jun, In; Lim, Kwang Muk; Choi, Yong Ho

2013-01-01

This paper describes the radiation doses to human and non-human biota in the Republic of Korea, as a result of the Fukushima nuclear accident. By using the measured airborne activity and ground deposition, the effective and thyroid doses of five human age groups (infant, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and adult) were estimated by the ECOSYS code, and the whole body absorbed dose rate of the eight Korean reference animals and plants (RAPs) was estimated by the K-BIOTA (the Korean computer code to assess the risk of radioactivity to wildlife). The first-year effective and thyroid human doses ranged from 5.7E-5 mSv in the infant group to 2.0E-4 mSv in the 5 years group, and from 5.0E-4 mSv in the infant group to 3.4E-3 mSv in the 5 years group, respectively. The life-time (70 years) effective and thyroid human doses ranged from 1.5E-4 mSv in the infant group to 3.0E-4 mSv in the 5 years group, and from 6.0E-4 mSv in the infant group to 3.5E-3 mSv in the 5 years group, respectively. The estimated maximum whole body absorbed dose rate to the Korean RAPs was 6.7E-7 mGy/d for a snake living in soil (terrestrial biota), and 2.0E-5 mGy/d for freshwater fish (aquatic biota), both of which were far less than the generic dose criteria to protect biota from ionizing radiation. Also, the screening level assessment for ERICA's (Environmental Risks from Ionizing Contaminants: Assessments and management) limiting organisms showed that the risk quotient (RQ) for the estimated maximum soil and water activity was significantly less than unity for both the terrestrial and freshwater organisms. Conclusively, the radiological risk of the radioactivity released into the environment by the Fukushima nuclear accident to the public and the non-human biota in the republic of Korea is considered negligible.

Analysis of Fukushima Daiichi Accident Using HFACS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mohamed, Saeed Almheiri

2013-01-01

The shadow of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident is still too big and will last long. On the other hand, it could still teach us lots of lessons to better design and operate nuclear power plants. In this paper, we will be focusing on the Fukushima Daiichi accident, especially on human organizational factors. We will analyze the accident using Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) in order to better understand the organizational climate of TEPCO 1 and NISA 2 that led to Fukushima Daiichi Accident. HFACS was developed for the U. S. aviation industry and has been used at many industries like the rail and mining industries. We found that the HFACS to be greatly beneficial in investigating the latent and organizational causes for the accident. The application results show that the causes of Fukushima Daiichi accident were spread out from sharp end (i.e. Unsafe Act) to blunt end (i. e. Organizational Influences). This means that the corresponding countermeasures should cover from front line staff to management. Thus, we managed to develop a better understanding on how to prevent similar errors or violations. The incident and near-miss have a lot of helpful information because it may show the actual and latent deficiencies of complex systems. We applied the HFACS into Fukushima Daiichi accident to better locate the causes related to both sharp and blunt ends of operation of NPP. In order to derive useful lessons from the accident analysis, the analyst should try to find the similarities not differences from the incident. It is imperative that whatever accident/incident analysis systems we use, we should fully utilize the disastrous Fukushima accident

Analysis of Fukushima Daiichi Accident Using HFACS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mohamed, Saeed Almheiri [Korea Advanced Institue of Science and Technology, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2013-10-15

The shadow of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident is still too big and will last long. On the other hand, it could still teach us lots of lessons to better design and operate nuclear power plants. In this paper, we will be focusing on the Fukushima Daiichi accident, especially on human organizational factors. We will analyze the accident using Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) in order to better understand the organizational climate of TEPCO{sup 1} and NISA{sup 2} that led to Fukushima Daiichi Accident. HFACS was developed for the U. S. aviation industry and has been used at many industries like the rail and mining industries. We found that the HFACS to be greatly beneficial in investigating the latent and organizational causes for the accident. The application results show that the causes of Fukushima Daiichi accident were spread out from sharp end (i.e. Unsafe Act) to blunt end (i. e. Organizational Influences). This means that the corresponding countermeasures should cover from front line staff to management. Thus, we managed to develop a better understanding on how to prevent similar errors or violations. The incident and near-miss have a lot of helpful information because it may show the actual and latent deficiencies of complex systems. We applied the HFACS into Fukushima Daiichi accident to better locate the causes related to both sharp and blunt ends of operation of NPP. In order to derive useful lessons from the accident analysis, the analyst should try to find the similarities not differences from the incident. It is imperative that whatever accident/incident analysis systems we use, we should fully utilize the disastrous Fukushima accident.

Revisiting the Goiania Accident: Medical and Dosimetric Experiences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oliveira, A.R.; Valverde, C.E.; Brandao Mello, N.J.L.; Almeida, C.E.V.

1998-01-01

Retrospective dosimetry can be accomplished by means of a physical reconstruction using mathematical or anthropomorphic phantoms or biological or clinical indicators. Biological dosimetry, based on biochemical, cytological and cytogenetic indicators, reduces the uncertainties in dose estimation. Micronuclei, PCC and FISH are techniques now available to radiobiologists and radiation specialists, which will complement the role played by conventional cytogenetics. After the Chernobyl accident, reliance was on various bioclinical dosemeters, such as the onset of vomiting, lymphocytes and neutrophils and biochemical indicators. The onset of prodromal manifestations, haematological behaviour and other indicators presented by eight caesium patients were analysed and correlated with the biological dosimetry performed immediately after the accident. Clinical and haematological indicators matched to a good extent with the cytogenetic dosimetry performed in Brazil and the USA. It was concluded that in an accident involving the public, retrospective dosimetry could be helpful in aiding dose estimation and also in validating dosimetry established by conventional physical and biological techniques. (author)

Use of bayesian operations for diagnosing accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, K.M.; Jae, M.; Suh, K.Y.

2005-01-01

In complex systems, it is necessary to model a logical representation of the overall system interaction with respect to the individual subsystems. Operators are allowed to follow EOPs (Emergency Operating Procedures) when reactor tripped because of accidents. But, it's very difficult to diagnose accidents and find out appropriate procedures to mitigate current accidents in a given short time. Even if they diagnose accidents, it also has possibility to misdiagnose. TMI accident is a good example of operators' errors. Methodology using Influence Diagrams has been developed and applied for representing the dependency behaviors and uncertain behaviors of complex systems. An example to diagnose the accidents such as SLOCA and SGTR with similar symptoms has been introduced. From the constructed model, operators could diagnose accidents at any states of accidents. This model can offer the information about accidents with given symptoms. This model might help operators to diagnose correctly and rapidly. It might be very useful to support operators to reduce human error. Also, from this study, it is applicable to diagnose other accidents with similar symptoms and to analyze causes of reactor trip. (authors)

Accidents - Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

This file is devoted to the Chernobyl accident. It is divided in four parts. The first part concerns the accident itself and its technical management. The second part is relative to the radiation doses and the different contaminations. The third part reports the sanitary effects, the determinists ones and the stochastic ones. The fourth and last part relates the consequences for the other European countries with the case of France. Through the different parts a point is tackled with the measures taken after the accident by the other countries to manage an accident, the cooperation between the different countries and the groups of research and studies about the reactors safety, and also with the international medical cooperation, specially for the children, everything in relation with the Chernobyl accident. (N.C.)

Consequences of the Chernobyl accident for the natural and human environments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dreicer, M. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States); Aarkog, A. [Risoe National Lab., Roskilde (Denmark); Alexakhin, R. [Russian Inst. of Agricultural Radiology and Agroecology (Russian Federation); Anspaugh, L. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States); Arkhipov, N.P. [Scientific and Technical Centre of the RIA `Pripyat` (Ukraine); Johansson, K.-J. [Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala (Sweden)

1996-07-01

In the ten years since the Chernobyl accident, an enormous amount of work has been done to assess the consequences to the natural and human environment. Although it is difficult to summarize such a large and varied field, some general conclusions can be drawn. This background paper includes the main findings concerning the direct impacts of radiation on the flora and fauna; the general advances of knowledge in the cycling of radionuclides in natural, seminatural and agricultural environments; some evaluation of countermeasures that were used; and a summary of the human radiation doses resulting from the environmental contamination. although open questions still remain, it can be concluded that: (1) at high radiation levels, the natural environment has shown short term impacts but any significant long term impacts remain to be seen; (2) effective countermeasures can be taken to reduce the transfer of contamination from the environment to humans but these are highly site specific and must be evaluated in terms of practicality as well as population does reduction; (3) the majority of the doses have already been received by the human population. If agricultural countermeasures are appropriately taken, the main source of future doses will be the gathering of food and recreational activities in natural and seminatural ecosystems.

Consequences of the Chernobyl accident for the natural and human environments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dreicer, M.; Aarkog, A.; Alexakhin, R.; Anspaugh, L.; Arkhipov, N.P.; Johansson, K.-J.

1996-07-01

In the ten years since the Chernobyl accident, an enormous amount of work has been done to assess the consequences to the natural and human environment. Although it is difficult to summarize such a large and varied field, some general conclusions can be drawn. This background paper includes the main findings concerning the direct impacts of radiation on the flora and fauna; the general advances of knowledge in the cycling of radionuclides in natural, seminatural and agricultural environments; some evaluation of countermeasures that were used; and a summary of the human radiation doses resulting from the environmental contamination. although open questions still remain, it can be concluded that: (1) at high radiation levels, the natural environment has shown short term impacts but any significant long term impacts remain to be seen; (2) effective countermeasures can be taken to reduce the transfer of contamination from the environment to humans but these are highly site specific and must be evaluated in terms of practicality as well as population does reduction; (3) the majority of the doses have already been received by the human population. If agricultural countermeasures are appropriately taken, the main source of future doses will be the gathering of food and recreational activities in natural and seminatural ecosystems

Human factors review for nuclear power plant severe accident sequence analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krois, P.A.; Haas, P.M.

1985-01-01

The paper discusses work conducted to: (1) support the severe accident sequence analysis of a nuclear power plant transient based on an assessment of operator actions, and (2) develop a descriptive model of operator severe accident management. Operator actions during the transient are assessed using qualitative and quantitative methods. A function-oriented accident management model provides a structure for developing technical operator guidance on mitigating core damage preventing radiological release

Cryopreserved Ultra-Thick Human Amniotic Membrane for Conjunctival Surface Reconstruction After Excision of Conjunctival Tumors.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, Thais S; Demirci, Hakan

2016-04-01

Cryopreserved ultra-thick human amniotic membrane (AM) is used for glaucoma surgery. We evaluated the use of cryopreserved ultra-thick human AM for conjunctival surface reconstruction after excision of a conjunctival tumor. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 28 patients who underwent conjunctival surface reconstruction with cryopreserved ultra-thick human AM after excision of the tumor. The AM was secured to the surrounding conjunctiva and underlying sclera with interrupted 8-0 Vicryl sutures. Clinical data regarding demographics, diagnosis, size and location of conjunctival tumors, patient outcome, and complications were gathered. Of 28 patients, 6 (21.4%) had malignant melanoma, 4 (14.3%) had squamous cell carcinoma, 6 (21.4%) had conjunctival intraepithelial neoplasia, 1 (3.6%) had sebaceous carcinoma, 1 (3.6%) had mucoepidermoid carcinoma, 1 (3.6%) had conjunctival intraepithelial dysplasia, 5 (17.9%) had pterygium, 2 (7.1%) had compound nevus, 1 (3.6%) had a large epithelial inclusion cyst, and 1 (3.6%) patient had a granuloma. The mean area of graft size was 156 ± 120 mm2. Postoperatively, the graft was well tolerated with no failure, discomfort, or dehiscence. During the 17-month mean follow-up, symblepharon, which was clinically nonsignificant, developed in 3 (11%) patients and partial stem cell deficiency was noted in 5 (18%) patients. Cryopreserved ultra-thick human AM is a well-tolerated, effective graft material that is easy to handle. It is a viable alternative for conjunctival surface reconstruction after excision of a conjunctival tumor.

Results of large scale thyroid dose reconstruction in Ukraine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Likhtarev, I.; Sobolev, B.; Kairo, I.; Tabachny, L.; Jacob, P.; Proehl, G.; Goulko, G.

1996-01-01

In 1993, the Ukrainian Ministry on Chernobyl Affairs initiated a large scale reconstruction of thyroid exposures to radioiodine after the Chernobyl accident. The objective was to provide the state policy on social compensations with a scientific background. About 7000 settlements from five contaminated regions have gotten certificates of thyroid exposure since then. Certificates contain estimates of the average thyroid dose from 131 I for seven age groups. The primary dose estimates used about 150000 direct measurements of the 131 I activity in the thyroid glands of inhabitants from Chernigiv, Kiev, Zhytomyr, and also Vinnytsa regions. Parameters of the assumed intake function were related to environmental and questionnaire data. The dose reconstruction for the remaining territory was based on empirical relations between intake function parameters and the 137 Cs deposition. The relationship was specified by the distance and the direction to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The relations were first derived for territories with direct measurements and then they were spread on other areas using daily iodine releases and atmospheric transportation routes. The results of the dose reconstruction allowed to mark zones on the territory of Ukraine according to the average levels of thyroid exposures. These zones underlay a policy of post-accidental health care and social compensations. Another important application of the thyroid dose reconstruction is the radiation risk assessment of thyroid cancer among people exposed during childhood due to the Chernobyl accident

New reconstruction algorithm for digital breast tomosynthesis: better image quality for humans and computers.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodriguez-Ruiz, Alejandro; Teuwen, Jonas; Vreemann, Suzan; Bouwman, Ramona W; van Engen, Ruben E; Karssemeijer, Nico; Mann, Ritse M; Gubern-Merida, Albert; Sechopoulos, Ioannis

2017-01-01

Background The image quality of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) volumes depends greatly on the reconstruction algorithm. Purpose To compare two DBT reconstruction algorithms used by the Siemens Mammomat Inspiration system, filtered back projection (FBP), and FBP with iterative optimizations (EMPIRE), using qualitative analysis by human readers and detection performance of machine learning algorithms. Material and Methods Visual grading analysis was performed by four readers specialized in breast imaging who scored 100 cases reconstructed with both algorithms (70 lesions). Scoring (5-point scale: 1 = poor to 5 = excellent quality) was performed on presence of noise and artifacts, visualization of skin-line and Cooper's ligaments, contrast, and image quality, and, when present, lesion visibility. In parallel, a three-dimensional deep-learning convolutional neural network (3D-CNN) was trained (n = 259 patients, 51 positives with BI-RADS 3, 4, or 5 calcifications) and tested (n = 46 patients, nine positives), separately with FBP and EMPIRE volumes, to discriminate between samples with and without calcifications. The partial area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (pAUC) of each 3D-CNN was used for comparison. Results EMPIRE reconstructions showed better contrast (3.23 vs. 3.10, P = 0.010), image quality (3.22 vs. 3.03, P algorithm provides DBT volumes with better contrast and image quality, fewer artifacts, and improved visibility of calcifications for human observers, as well as improved detection performance with deep-learning algorithms.

A New Human-Derived Acellular Dermal Matrix for Breast Reconstruction Available for the European Market: Preliminary Results.

Science.gov (United States)

Folli, Secondo; Curcio, Annalisa; Melandri, Davide; Bondioli, Elena; Rocco, Nicola; Catanuto, Giuseppe; Falcini, Fabio; Purpura, Valeria; Mingozzi, Matteo; Buggi, Federico; Marongiu, Francesco

2018-04-01

The introduction of acellular dermal matrices (ADMs) contributed to the growing diffusion of direct-to-implant breast reconstruction (DTI-BR) following mastectomy for breast cancer. According to specific legislations, European specialists could not benefit from the use of human-derived ADMs, even though most evidence in the literature are available for this kind of device, showed optimal outcomes in breast reconstruction. The Skin Bank of the Bufalini Hospital (Cesena, Italy) obtained in 2009 the approval for the production and distribution of a new human cadaver-donor-derived ADM (named with the Italian acronym, MODA, for matrice omologa dermica acellulata) from the Italian National Transplant Center and National Health Institute. We report preliminary results of MODA application in direct-to-implant breast reconstruction following nipple-areola complex (NAC)-sparing mastectomy for breast cancer treatment. We prospectively enrolled all women undergoing NAC-sparing mastectomy for breast cancer and DTI-BR in our breast surgical unit from June 2015 to January 2017. We enrolled a selected population without previous chest wall irradiation, not being heavy tobacco smokers or diabetic, with a BMI MODA in direct-to-implant breast reconstruction following NAC-sparing mastectomy for breast cancer treatment. This is particularly relevant for the European market, where no other human-derived devices are available for breast reconstruction due to regulatory restrictions. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

Probability estimation of potential harm to human health and life caused by a hypothetical nuclear accident at the nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soloviov, Vladyslav; Pysmenniy, Yevgen

2015-01-01

This paper describes some general methodological aspects of the assessment of the damage to human life and health caused by a hypothetical nuclear accident at the nuclear power plant (NPP). Probability estimation of death (due to cancer and non-cancer effects of radiation injury), disability and incapacity of individuals were made by taking into account the regulations of Ukraine. According to the assessment, the probability of death due to cancer and non-cancer effects of radiation damage to individuals who received radiation dose of 1 Sv is equal to 0.09. Probability of disability of 1, 2 or 3 group regardless of the radiation dose is 0.009, 0.0054, 0.027, respectively. Probability of temporary disability of the individual who received dose equal to 33 mSv (the level of potential exposure in a hypothetical nuclear accident at the NPP) is equal 0.16. This probability estimation of potential harm to human health and life caused by a hypothetical nuclear accident can be used for NPP in different countries using requirements of regulations in these countries. And also to estimate the amount of insurance payments due to the nuclear damage in the event of a nuclear accident at the NPP or other nuclear industry enterprise. (author)

Tissue engineering for human urethral reconstruction: systematic review of recent literature.

Science.gov (United States)

de Kemp, Vincent; de Graaf, Petra; Fledderus, Joost O; Ruud Bosch, J L H; de Kort, Laetitia M O

2015-01-01

Techniques to treat urethral stricture and hypospadias are restricted, as substitution of the unhealthy urethra with tissue from other origins (skin, bladder or buccal mucosa) has some limitations. Therefore, alternative sources of tissue for use in urethral reconstructions are considered, such as ex vivo engineered constructs. To review recent literature on tissue engineering for human urethral reconstruction. A search was made in the PubMed and Embase databases restricted to the last 25 years and the English language. A total of 45 articles were selected describing the use of tissue engineering in urethral reconstruction. The results are discussed in four groups: autologous cell cultures, matrices/scaffolds, cell-seeded scaffolds, and clinical results of urethral reconstructions using these materials. Different progenitor cells were used, isolated from either urine or adipose tissue, but slightly better results were obtained with in vitro expansion of urothelial cells from bladder washings, tissue biopsies from the bladder (urothelium) or the oral cavity (buccal mucosa). Compared with a synthetic scaffold, a biological scaffold has the advantage of bioactive extracellular matrix proteins on its surface. When applied clinically, a non-seeded matrix only seems suited for use as an onlay graft. When a tubularized substitution is the aim, a cell-seeded construct seems more beneficial. Considerable experience is available with tissue engineering of urethral tissue in vitro, produced with cells of different origin. Clinical and in vivo experiments show promising results.

Retrospective accident dosimetry using trapped charges

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, J. I.; Kim, J. L.; Chang, I.; Kim, B. H. [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2015-10-15

Dicentric chromosome aberrations technique scoring of aberrations in metaphases prepared from human lymphocytes is most commonly used. This is considered as a reliable technique because the sample is extracted from the individual human body itself. There are other techniques in biological dosimetry such as Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) using translocations, premature chromosome condensation (PCC) and micronucleus assay. However the minimum detectable doses (MDD) are relatively high and sample preparation time is also relatively longer. Therefore, there is limitation in use of these techniques for the purpose of triage in a short time in case of emergency situation relating large number of persons. Electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR) technique is based on the signal from unpaired electrons such as free radicals in irradiated materials especially tooth enamel, however it has also limitation for the purpose of triage because of difficulty of sample taking and its high MDD. Recently as physical methods, thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) technique have been attracted due to its lower MDD and simplicity of sample preparation. Density of the trapped charges is generally proportional to the radiation dose absorbed and the intensity of emitting light is also proportional to the density of trapped charges, thus it can be applied to measure radiation dose retrospectively. In this presentation, TL and OSL techniques are going to introduced and discussed as physical methods for retrospective accident dosimetry using trapped charges especially in electronic component materials. As a tool for dose reconstruction for emergency situation, thermoluminescece and optically stimulated luminescence techniques which are based on trapped charges during exposure of material are introduced. These techniques have several advantages such as high sensitivity, fast evaluation and ease to sample collection over common biological dosimetry and EPR

Radiation dose to human and non-human biota in the republic of Korea resulting from the Fukushima nuclear accident

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Keum, Dong Kwon; Jun, In; Lim, Kwang Muk; Choi, Yong Ho [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2013-02-15

This paper describes the radiation doses to human and non-human biota in the Republic of Korea, as a result of the Fukushima nuclear accident. By using the measured airborne activity and ground deposition, the effective and thyroid doses of five human age groups (infant, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and adult) were estimated by the ECOSYS code, and the whole body absorbed dose rate of the eight Korean reference animals and plants (RAPs) was estimated by the K-BIOTA (the Korean computer code to assess the risk of radioactivity to wildlife). The first-year effective and thyroid human doses ranged from 5.7E-5 mSv in the infant group to 2.0E-4 mSv in the 5 years group, and from 5.0E-4 mSv in the infant group to 3.4E-3 mSv in the 5 years group, respectively. The life-time (70 years) effective and thyroid human doses ranged from 1.5E-4 mSv in the infant group to 3.0E-4 mSv in the 5 years group, and from 6.0E-4 mSv in the infant group to 3.5E-3 mSv in the 5 years group, respectively. The estimated maximum whole body absorbed dose rate to the Korean RAPs was 6.7E-7 mGy/d for a snake living in soil (terrestrial biota), and 2.0E-5 mGy/d for freshwater fish (aquatic biota), both of which were far less than the generic dose criteria to protect biota from ionizing radiation. Also, the screening level assessment for ERICA's (Environmental Risks from Ionizing Contaminants: Assessments and management) limiting organisms showed that the risk quotient (RQ) for the estimated maximum soil and water activity was significantly less than unity for both the terrestrial and freshwater organisms. Conclusively, the radiological risk of the radioactivity released into the environment by the Fukushima nuclear accident to the public and the non-human biota in the republic of Korea is considered negligible.

Application of the MOLE in post-nuclear accident characterization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, S.J.; Alvarez, J.L.

1981-01-01

Following a nuclear accident there is a need to determine the chemical composition of materials in liquid, solid and gaseous form, the crystalline structure of solids, the size and chemical composition of particles, and the chemical characterization of contaminants on surfaces. This analytical information is required to reconstruct the accident scenario, to select decontamination methods, and to determine future safety requirements. The MOLE (Molecular Optical Laser Examiner) is a Raman microprobe system which has proven to be a valuable analytical tool in providing this type of chemical information. It can determine the chemical species of polyatomic molecules and ions having characteristic Raman spectra. As little as 1 picogram of a component or a 1 μm particle can be analyzed. The imaging system can also provide mapping of selected components on a surface. A system description, sample handling techniques, and applications are presented. Specific applications to the Three Mile Island-Unit 2 accident are also addressed

Transport Accident Costs and the Value of Safety

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Koornstra, Matthijs; Evans, Andrew; Glansdorp, Cees

The publication descibes a study of costs of passenger transport accident by road, rail, air and sea. It is argued that "willingness to pay" theory should be preferred to "human capital" theory in valuations of life and limb. The total costs of passenger transport accidents in the EU is estimated...... to about 165 billion ECU in 1995 year prices. Road accident costs account for more than 95% of the costs....

Societal representations on the accident with caesium-137

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chaves, E.G.

1998-01-01

The influence of societal representations on the theme of nuclear energy are reviewed in the light of the public's reactions to the accident with the capsule of 137 Cs in Goiania. As a starting point, it is accepted that the panic caused by the accident can be properly understood only if human subjectivity is taken into consideration. This perspective is required whenever events unfold which put human life and the environment at risk. Faced with the accident, the public internalized radioactivity - an element unknown to them - as a certainty of contracting cancer and ultimately death, despite the fact that such outcomes can only be the result of excessive exposure to radioactivity. (author)

Proceedings of the III international workshop 'Actual problems of dosimetry (15 years after the Chernobyl accident)'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Milyutin, A.A.; Chudakov, V.A.; Berezhnoj, A.V.

2001-10-01

Materials grouped to three main issues: normative, metrological and technical support of dosimetric and radiometric control; biological dosimetry and markers of radiation effects; monitoring and reconstruction of radiation doses at radiation accidents

Nuclear accidents and safety measures of domestic nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Song Zurong; Che Shuwei; Pan Xiang

2012-01-01

Based on the design standards for the safety of nuclear and radiation in nuclear power plants, the three accidents in the history of nuclear power are analyzed. And the main factors for these accidents are found out, that is, human factors and unpredicted natural calamity. By combining the design and operation parameters of domestic nuclear plants, the same accidents are studied and some necessary preventive schemes are put forward. In the security operation technology of domestic nuclear power plants nowadays, accidents caused by human factors can by prevented completely. But the safety standards have to be reconsidered for the unpredicted neutral disasters. How to reduce the hazard of nuclear radiation and leakage to the level that can be accepted by the government and public when accidents occur under extreme conditions during construction and operation of nuclear power plants must be considered adequately. (authors)

Coping with Unanticipated Accidents using Emergency Operating Procedures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Yochan; Jung, Wondea

2013-01-01

In, unsafe acts associated with a literal following of a procedure were reported. A report of the Fukushima accident also revealed that a tendency to adhere to procedures and prior practices can impede applying effective countermeasures. To overcome the conflicts between benefit and jeopardy of procedures during unanticipated accidents, we reviewed the literature on the perspectives of cognitive engineering and artificial intelligence. From the insights about human planning of the literatures, we also proposed an approach of how to train operators to effectively use EOPs during unanticipated accidents. There are three key processes required to effectively cope with emergency situations: how correctly the operators are aware of the occurring situations, how properly they develop corresponding plans for the situations, and how accurately they execute the plans. This paper presents a way to develop the plans using EOPs from some literature of human planning. Even if professional operators have implicitly shaped good structures of procedures already, it is expected that this approach will provide a more systematic and concrete training strategy. If the operators are trained with this strategy, a higher level of human reliability would be ensured in unanticipated accidents

Reconstruction of radionuclide intakes for the residents of East Urals Radioactive Trace (1957-2011)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tolstykh, Evgenia I.; Peremyslova, Lyudmila M.; Degteva, Marina O. [Urals Research Center for Radiation Medicine, Chelyabinsk (Russian Federation); Napier, Bruce A. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA (United States)

2017-03-15

The East Urals Radioactive Trace (EURT) was formed after a chemical explosion in the radioactive waste-storage facility of the Mayak Production Association in 1957 (Southern Urals, Russia) and resulted in an activity dispersion of 7.4 x 10{sup 16} Bq into the atmosphere. Internal exposure due to ingestion of radionuclides with local foodstuffs was the main factor of public exposure at the EURT. The EURT cohort, combining residents of most contaminated settlements, was formed for epidemiological study at the Urals Research Center for Radiation Medicine, Russia (URCRM). For the purpose of improvement of radionuclide intake estimates for cohort members, the following data sets collected in URCRM were used: (1) Total β-activity and radiochemical measurements of {sup 90}Sr in local foodstuffs over all of the period of interest (1958-2011; n = 2200), which were used for relative {sup 90}Sr intake estimations. (2) {sup 90}Sr measurements in human bones and whole body (n = 338); these data were used for average {sup 90}Sr intake derivations using an age- and gender-dependent Sr-biokinetic model. Non-strontium radionuclide intakes were evaluated on the basis of {sup 90}Sr intake data and the radionuclide composition of contaminated foodstuffs. Validation of radionuclide intakes during the first years after the accident was first carried out using measurements of the feces β-activity of EURT residents (n = 148). The comparison of experimental and reconstructed values of feces β-activity shows good agreement. {sup 90}Sr intakes for residents of settlements evacuated 7-14 days after the accident were also obtained from {sup 90}Sr measurements in human bone and whole body. The results of radionuclide intake reconstruction will be used to estimate the internal doses for the members of the EURT cohort. (orig.)

Developmental anatomy of the liver from computerized three-dimensional reconstructions of four human embryos (from Carnegie stage 14 to 23).

Science.gov (United States)

Lhuaire, Martin; Tonnelet, Romain; Renard, Yohann; Piardi, Tullio; Sommacale, Daniele; Duparc, Fabrice; Braun, Marc; Labrousse, Marc

2015-07-01

Some aspects of human embryogenesis and organogenesis remain unclear, especially concerning the development of the liver and its vasculature. The purpose of this study was to investigate, from a descriptive standpoint, the evolutionary morphogenesis of the human liver and its vasculature by computerized three-dimensional reconstructions of human embryos. Serial histological sections of four human embryos at successive stages of development belonging to three prestigious French historical collections were digitized and reconstructed in 3D using software commonly used in medical radiology. Manual segmentation of the hepatic anatomical regions of interest was performed section by section. In this study, human liver organogenesis was examined at Carnegie stages 14, 18, 21 and 23. Using a descriptive and an analytical method, we showed that these stages correspond to the implementation of the large hepatic vascular patterns (the portal system, the hepatic artery and the hepatic venous system) and the biliary system. To our knowledge, our work is the first descriptive morphological study using 3D computerized reconstructions from serial histological sections of the embryonic development of the human liver between Carnegie stages 14 and 23. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Human Factors Aspects of Aircraft Accidents

Science.gov (United States)

1982-10-01

invaatiaaamanta traa important« : chainaa da grand entratian avion, revision daa motaura at banca d’aaaala, reviaion daa Equipements nEceaaitant daa...defectueux. Sur le plan des accidents d’apparells militaires, qui sort quelque peu de ma specia- lite, les renseignements disponibles dans la presse ...Undoubtedly, a compelling reason for staying with the aircraft was to try to regain pitch attitude control in view of a large audience of press and

Investigate the causes of transport and tramming accidents on coal mines.

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Rushworth, AM

1999-03-01

Full Text Available Transport and tramming accidents on coal mines in South Africa are a major component in the overall pattern of colliery accidents. Furthermore, there is now a widespread acceptance that human error is a common cause of failure in accident patterns...

Study of human factors, and its basic aspects focusing the IEA-R1 research reactor operators, aiming at the prevention of accidents caused by human failures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martins, Maria da Penha Sanches

2008-01-01

This work presents a study of human factors and possible human failure reasons that can cause incidents, accidents and workers exposition, associated to risks intrinsic to the profession. The objective is to contribute with the operators of IEA-R1 reactor located at IPEN CNEN/S P. Accidents in the technological field, including the nuclear, have shown that the causes are much more connected to human failure than to system and equipment failures, what has led the regulatory bodies to consider studies on human failure. The research proposed in this work is quantitative/qualitative and also descriptive. Two questionnaires were used to collect data. The first of them was elaborated from the safety culture attributes which are described by the International Atomic Energy Agency - IAEA. The second considered individual and situational factors composing categories that could affect people in the work area. A carefully selected transcription of the theoretical basis according to the study of human factors was used. The methodology demonstrated a good reliability degree. Results lead to mediate factors which need direct actions concerning the needs of the group and of the individual. This research shows that it is necessary to have a really effective unit of planning and organization, not only to the physical and psychological health issues but also to the safety in the work. (author)

Disaster Evacuation from Japan's 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hasegawa, Reiko

2013-01-01

The triple disaster that hit the Tohoku region of Japan on 11 March 2011 triggered a massive human displacement: more than 400,000 people evacuated their homes as a gigantic tsunami induced by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake engulfed the coastal areas, and the following nuclear accident in Fukushima released a large amount of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. This study analyses the disaster response, with a particular focus on evacuation of the population, and social consequences of this complex crisis, based on intensive fieldwork carried out one year after the catastrophe. It reveals that the responses of the Japanese authorities and population were significantly different between a natural disaster and an industrial (man-made) accident. Being prone to both earthquakes and tsunamis, Japan had been preparing itself against such risks for many years. A tsunami alert was immediately issued and the population knew how and where to evacuate. In contrast, the evacuation from the nuclear accident was organised in total chaos, as a severe accident or large-scale evacuation had never been envisaged -let alone exercised- before the disaster. The population was thus forced to flee with no information as to the gravity of the accident or radiation risk. In both cases, the risk perception prior to the catastrophe played a key role in determining the vulnerability of the population at the time of the crisis. While tsunami evacuees are struggling with a slow reconstruction process due to financial difficulties, nuclear evacuees are suffering from uncertainty as to their prospect of return. One year after the accident, the Japanese authorities began to encourage nuclear evacuees to return to the areas contaminated by radiation according to a newly established safety standard. This triggered a vivid controversy within the affected communities, creating a rift between those who trust the government's notion of safety and those who do not. The nuclear disaster has thus

Accident management for severe accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bari, R.A.; Pratt, W.T.; Lehner, J.; Leonard, M.; Disalvo, R.; Sheron, B.

1988-01-01

The management of severe accidents in light water reactors is receiving much attention in several countries. The reduction of risk by measures and/or actions that would affect the behavior of a severe accident is discussed. The research program that is being conducted by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission focuses on both in-vessel accident management and containment and release accident management. The key issues and approaches taken in this program are summarized. 6 refs

A Study on an Accident Diagnosis Methodology Using Influence Diagrams

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, Kyungmin; Jae, Moosung

2006-01-01

For nuclear power plants, EOPs help operators to diagnose, control and mitigate accidents. However, it is very difficult that operators follow appropriate EOPs for accidents with similar symptoms in a given short period of time. Also EOPs are very complicated to follow and have many procedures to do. Therefore, if operators cannot diagnose correctly, the accident would become severe. Correct diagnostic action depends on the decision making ability of operators. Therefore, the methodology that can diagnose accidents quickly and help operators follow appropriate procedures should be developed. Due to the complexity of the tasks, it is very important to reduce human errors during diagnostic actions. In this study, to minimize human errors an accident diagnosis model has been constructed based on EOPs, accident symptoms and component reliabilities. For construction of model, Influence Diagrams have been applied. This decision-making tool consists of nodes and arcs. It is applicable to complicated situations, such as those required for developing strategies for managing severe accidents in nuclear power plants. And quantification of model has performed with total probability and Bayesian theorem. Through this quantification, the results should help operators diagnose complex situations

A comparison of the hazard perception ability of accident-involved and accident-free motorcycle riders.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Andy S K; Ng, Terry C K; Lee, Hoe C

2011-07-01

conceptualizing the influence of different driving behaviors so as to enrich our understanding of the role of human factors in road accidents and consequently develop effective countermeasures to prevent traffic accidents involving motorcycles. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Testing of an accident consequence assessment model using field data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Homma, Toshimitsu; Matsubara, Takeshi; Tomita, Kenichi

2007-01-01

This paper presents the results obtained from the application of an accident consequence assessment model, OSCAAR to the Iput dose reconstruction scenario of BIOMASS and also to the Chernobyl 131 I fallout scenario of EMRAS, both organized by International Atomic Energy Agency. The Iput Scenario deals with 137 Cs contamination of the catchment basin and agricultural area in the Bryansk Region of Russia, which was heavily contaminated after the Chernobyl accident. This exercise was used to test the chronic exposure pathway models in OSCAAR with actual measurements and to identify the most important sources of uncertainty with respect to each part of the assessment. The OSCAAR chronic exposure pathway models had some limitations but the refined model, COLINA almost successfully reconstructed the whole 10-year time course of 137 Cs activity concentrations in most requested types of agricultural products and natural foodstuffs. The Plavsk scenario provides a good opportunity to test not only the food chain transfer model of 131 I but also the method of assessing 131 I thyroid burden. OSCAAR showed in general good capabilities for assessing the important 131 I exposure pathways. (author)

Patient treatment in radiation accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tanum, G.; Bruland, Oe.S.; Hjelle, D.; Reitan, J.B.

1999-01-01

Accidental human injury due to ionizing radiation is rare. Industrial accidents are comparatively the most common. Life saving procedures should always have priority to any concern about radiation injury or contamination. The personal risks for emergency medial personnel is negligible when simple measures are taken. Repeated clinical examinations and blood lymphocyte counts should be performed on all patients with suspected radiation injury to allow a diagnosis. The radiation syndrome develops within days or weeks depending on total radiation dose, dose rate and dose distribution. Damage to the bone marrow and gut are the most important. Local radiation injuries to the hands are common in industrial accidents. The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority should always be called when a potential ionizing radiation accident takes place within Norway

Factors correlated with traffic accidents as a basis for evaluating Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Staubach, Maria

2009-09-01

This study aims to identify factors which influence and cause errors in traffic accidents and to use these as a basis for information to guide the application and design of driver assistance systems. A total of 474 accidents were examined in depth for this study by means of a psychological survey, data from accident reports, and technical reconstruction information. An error analysis was subsequently carried out, taking into account the driver, environment, and vehicle sub-systems. Results showed that all accidents were influenced by errors as a consequence of distraction and reduced activity. For crossroad accidents, there were further errors resulting from sight obstruction, masked stimuli, focus errors, and law infringements. Lane departure crashes were additionally caused by errors as a result of masked stimuli, law infringements, expectation errors as well as objective and action slips, while same direction accidents occurred additionally because of focus errors, expectation errors, and objective and action slips. Most accidents were influenced by multiple factors. There is a safety potential for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), which support the driver in information assimilation and help to avoid distraction and reduced activity. The design of the ADAS is dependent on the specific influencing factors of the accident type.

Site Specific Analyses of a Spent Nuclear Fuel Transportation Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Biwer, B. M.; Chen, S. Y.

2003-01-01

The number of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) shipments is expected to increase significantly during the time period that the United States' inventory of SNF is sent to a final disposal site. Prior work estimated that the highest accident risks of a SNF shipping campaign to the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain were in the corridor states, such as Illinois. The largest potential human health impacts would be expected to occur in areas with high population densities such as urban settings. Thus, our current study examined the human health impacts from the most plausible severe SNF transportation accidents in the Chicago metropolitan area. The RISKIND 2.0 program was used to model site-specific data for an area where the largest impacts might occur. The results have shown that the radiological human health consequences of a severe SNF rail transportation accident on average might be similar to one year of exposure to natural background radiation for those persons living a nd working in the most affected areas downwind of the actual accident location. For maximally exposed individuals, an exposure similar to about two years of exposure to natural background radiation was estimated. In addition to the accident probabilities being very low (approximately 1 chance in 10,000 or less during the entire shipping campaign), the actual human health impacts are expected to be lower if any of the accidents considered did occur, because the results are dependent on the specific location and weather conditions, such as wind speed and direction, that were selected to maximize the results. Also, comparison of the results of longer duration accident scenarios against U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines was made to demonstrate the usefulness of this site-specific analysis for emergency planning purposes

[The role of "competent physician" for prevention of accidents at work].

Science.gov (United States)

Ramistella, E; Bergamaschi, A; Mosconi, G; Rossi, O; Sallese, D

2008-01-01

Using at best the professional and legal tools at his/her disposal, the "competent physician" can have a relevant role in reducing accidents in the workplace. In assessing the worker's suitability to specific tasks, the competent physician checks the presence of pathologies or functional impairments of organs or apparatuses that can be an additional risk for the occurrence of accidents at work. The activity aimed to preventing accidents at work translates also in taking part in the planning and implementation of information activities and workers' training within the company. The various risk factors inherent in the workplace and so-called "human factors" can interact in a negative way to the point of becoming a cause of accidents. The human variables of accident risk at the industrial, occupational and even individual level, may be numerous. In this paper we shall review these important aspects and attempt to clarify the role that can be played by the competent physician in the prevention of accidents at work.

The ultimate nuclear accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abdus Salam, A.

1988-01-01

The estimated energy equivalent of Chernobyl explosion was the 1/150 th of the explosive energy equivalent of atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; while the devastation that could be caused by the world's stock pile of nuclear weapons, could be equivalent to 160 millions of Chernobyl-like incidents. As known, the number of nuclear weapons is over 50,000 and 2000 nuclear weapons are sufficient to destroy the world. The Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents have been blamed on human factors but also the human element, particularly in the form of psychological stresses on those operating the nuclear weapons, could accidentally bring the world to a nuclear catastrophe. This opinion is encouraged by the London's Sunday Times magazine which gave a graphic description of life inside a nuclear submarine. So, to speak of nuclear reactor accidents and not of nuclear weapons is false security. (author)

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 Accident Progression Uncertainty Analysis and Implications for Decommissioning of Fukushima Reactors - Volume I.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gauntt, Randall O. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Mattie, Patrick D. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2016-01-01

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has conducted an uncertainty analysis (UA) on the Fukushima Daiichi unit (1F1) accident progression with the MELCOR code. The model used was developed for a previous accident reconstruction investigation jointly sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). That study focused on reconstructing the accident progressions, as postulated by the limited plant data. This work was focused evaluation of uncertainty in core damage progression behavior and its effect on key figures-of-merit (e.g., hydrogen production, reactor damage state, fraction of intact fuel, vessel lower head failure). The primary intent of this study was to characterize the range of predicted damage states in the 1F1 reactor considering state of knowledge uncertainties associated with MELCOR modeling of core damage progression and to generate information that may be useful in informing the decommissioning activities that will be employed to defuel the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Additionally, core damage progression variability inherent in MELCOR modeling numerics is investigated.

Learning lessons from accidents with a human and organisational factors perspective: deficiencies and failures of operating experience feedback systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dechy, N.; Rousseau, J.M.; Jeffroy, F.

2012-01-01

This paper aims at reminding the failures of operating experience feedback (OEF) systems through the lessons of accidents and provides a framework for improving the efficiency of OEF processes. The risk is for example to miss lessons from other companies and industrial sectors, or to miss the implementation of adequate corrective actions with the risk to repeat accidents. Most of major accidents have been caused by a learning failure or other organisational factors as a contributing cause among several root causes. Some of the recurring organisational factors are: -) poor recognition of critical components, of critical activities or deficiency in anticipation and detection of errors, -) excessive production pressure, -) deficiency of communication or lack of quality of dialogue, -) Excessive formalism, -) organisational complexity, -) learning deficiencies (OEF, closing feedback loops, lack of listening of whistle-blowers). Some major accidents occurred in the nuclear industry. Although the Three Mile Island accident has multiple causes, in particular, an inappropriate design of the man-machine interface, it is a striking example of the loss of external lessons from incidents. As for Fukushima it is too early to have established evidence on learning failures. The systematic study and organisational analysis of OEF failures in industrial accidents whatever their sector has enabled us to provide a framework for OEF improvements. Five key OEF issues to improve in priority: 1) human and organisational factors analysis of the root causes of the events, 2) listening to the field staff, dissenting voices and whistle-blowers, 3) monitoring of the external events that provide generic lessons, 4) building an alive memory through a culture of accidents with people who become experiences pillars, and 5) the setting of external audit or organisational analysis of the OEF system by independent experts. The paper is followed by the slides of the presentation

Chernobyl accident. Exposures and effects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bennett, B.; Bouville, A.; Hall, P.; Savkin, M.; Storm, H.

2000-01-01

The Chernobyl accident that occurred in Ukraine in April 1986 happened during an experimental test of the electrical control system as the reactor was being shut down for routine maintenance. The operators, in violation of safety regulations, had switched off important control systems and allowed the reactor to reach unstable, low-power conditions. A sudden power surge caused a steam explosion that ruptured the reactor vessel and allowed further violent fuel-steam interactions that destroyed the reactor and the reactor building. The Chernobyl accident was the most serious to have ever occurred in the nuclear power industry. The accident caused the early death of 30 power plant employees and fire fighters and resulted in widespread radioactive contamination in areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine inhabited by several million people. Radionuclides released from the reactor that caused exposure of individuals were mainly iodine-131, caesium-134 and caesium-137. Iodine-131 has a short radioactive half-life (8 days), but it can be transferred relatively rapidly through milk and leafy vegetables to humans. Iodine becomes localized in the thyroid gland. For reasons of intake of these foods, size of thyroid gland and metabolism, the thyroid doses are usually greater to infants and children than to adults. The isotopes of caesium have relatively long half-lives (caesium-134: 2 years; caesium-137: 30 years). These radionuclides cause long-term exposures through the ingestion pathway and from external exposure to these radionuclides deposited on the ground. In addition to radiation exposure, the accident caused long-term changes in the lives of people living in the contaminated regions, since measures intended to limit radiation doses included resettlements, changes in food supplies, and restrictions in activities of individuals and families. These changes were accompanied by major economic, social and political changes in the affected countries resulting

A trend analysis of human error events for proactive prevention of accidents. Methodology development and effective utilization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hirotsu, Yuko; Ebisu, Mitsuhiro; Aikawa, Takeshi; Matsubara, Katsuyuki

2006-01-01

This paper described methods for analyzing human error events that has been accumulated in the individual plant and for utilizing the result to prevent accidents proactively. Firstly, a categorization framework of trigger action and causal factors of human error events were reexamined, and the procedure to analyze human error events was reviewed based on the framework. Secondly, a method for identifying the common characteristics of trigger action data and of causal factor data accumulated by analyzing human error events was clarified. In addition, to utilize the results of trend analysis effectively, methods to develop teaching material for safety education, to develop the checkpoints for the error prevention and to introduce an error management process for strategic error prevention were proposed. (author)

The principles of radioiodine dosimetry following a nuclear accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zvonova, I.A.

1996-01-01

Based upon the experience of radioiodine dosimetry after the Chernobyl accident main principals of radioiodine measurements and dosimetry in thyroid glands of population in case of a radiation accident are discussed in the report. For the correct dose estimation following the radioiodine measurement in the thyroid one should know the ''history'' of radionuclide intake into the body of a contaminated person. So a measurement of radioiodine thyroid content should be accompanied by asking questions of investigated persons about, their life style and feeding after a nuclear incident. These data coincidently with data of radionuclides dynamic in the air and food (especially in milk products) are used for the development of radioiodine intake model and then for thyroid dose estimation. The influence of stable iodine prophylaxis and other countermeasures on values are discussed in dependence on the time of its using. Some methods of thyroid dose reconstruction used after the Chernobyl accident in Russia for a situation of thyroid radioiodine measurements lacking in a contaminated settlement are presented in the report. (author). 16 refs, 5 figs, 3 tabs

The principles of radioiodine dosimetry following a nuclear accident

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zvonova, I A [Institute of Radiation Hygiene, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation)

1996-08-01

Based upon the experience of radioiodine dosimetry after the Chernobyl accident main principals of radioiodine measurements and dosimetry in thyroid glands of population in case of a radiation accident are discussed in the report. For the correct dose estimation following the radioiodine measurement in the thyroid one should know the ``history`` of radionuclide intake into the body of a contaminated person. So a measurement of radioiodine thyroid content should be accompanied by asking questions of investigated persons about, their life style and feeding after a nuclear incident. These data coincidently with data of radionuclides dynamic in the air and food (especially in milk products) are used for the development of radioiodine intake model and then for thyroid dose estimation. The influence of stable iodine prophylaxis and other countermeasures on values are discussed in dependence on the time of its using. Some methods of thyroid dose reconstruction used after the Chernobyl accident in Russia for a situation of thyroid radioiodine measurements lacking in a contaminated settlement are presented in the report. (author). 16 refs, 5 figs, 3 tabs.

Comparison of accident risks in different energy systems: Comments from Russian specialists

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2000-01-01

Many articles on accident risk analysis of different energy systems in comparison with nuclear power share certain stereotypical features. For example: When assessing the risks associated with the operation of such facilities, they ignore the effects of the upgrading of RBMK reactors which was carried out after the Chernobyl accident. In their integrated assessment of the radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident they use numerous studies which frequently contain unreliable source data and unfounded predictions, and they ignore many socio-political factors which considerably increased the damage caused by the accident. Unfortunately, the study in question, despite its topicality and originality of approach, is also not without such shortcomings. After the Chernobyl accident, reconstruction and safety enhancement measures were implemented at nuclear power plants with RBMK reactors which were without precedent in world practice and have continued to this day. According to probabilistic safety assessments (PSA) carried out with the assistance of international experts, the probability of serious accidents at RBMKs has decreased by a factor of two or more thanks to the above mentioned measures. The mean weighted safety index for all operational RBMK reactors is 10 -4 l/year and is decreasing thanks to the ongoing and planned reconstruction of all units. All operational nuclear power plants with RBMK reactors are thus on a par with the successfully operating Soviet WWERs and western boiling water reactors (BWRs) and pressurized water reactors (PWRs), and satisfy the IAEA recommendations regarding the risk level of older generation nuclear power plants. The authors of the IAEA Bulletin article give estimates of the remote radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident which range from an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 fatal cases of radiation-induced cancer, and the literature on the subject contains even more extreme estimates. However, our 14 years

Computational and human observer image quality evaluation of low dose, knowledge-based CT iterative reconstruction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eck, Brendan L.; Fahmi, Rachid; Miao, Jun [Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 (United States); Brown, Kevin M.; Zabic, Stanislav; Raihani, Nilgoun [Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 (United States); Wilson, David L., E-mail: dlw@case.edu [Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 and Department of Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 (United States)

2015-10-15

Purpose: Aims in this study are to (1) develop a computational model observer which reliably tracks the detectability of human observers in low dose computed tomography (CT) images reconstructed with knowledge-based iterative reconstruction (IMR™, Philips Healthcare) and filtered back projection (FBP) across a range of independent variables, (2) use the model to evaluate detectability trends across reconstructions and make predictions of human observer detectability, and (3) perform human observer studies based on model predictions to demonstrate applications of the model in CT imaging. Methods: Detectability (d′) was evaluated in phantom studies across a range of conditions. Images were generated using a numerical CT simulator. Trained observers performed 4-alternative forced choice (4-AFC) experiments across dose (1.3, 2.7, 4.0 mGy), pin size (4, 6, 8 mm), contrast (0.3%, 0.5%, 1.0%), and reconstruction (FBP, IMR), at fixed display window. A five-channel Laguerre–Gauss channelized Hotelling observer (CHO) was developed with internal noise added to the decision variable and/or to channel outputs, creating six different internal noise models. Semianalytic internal noise computation was tested against Monte Carlo and used to accelerate internal noise parameter optimization. Model parameters were estimated from all experiments at once using maximum likelihood on the probability correct, P{sub C}. Akaike information criterion (AIC) was used to compare models of different orders. The best model was selected according to AIC and used to predict detectability in blended FBP-IMR images, analyze trends in IMR detectability improvements, and predict dose savings with IMR. Predicted dose savings were compared against 4-AFC study results using physical CT phantom images. Results: Detection in IMR was greater than FBP in all tested conditions. The CHO with internal noise proportional to channel output standard deviations, Model-k4, showed the best trade-off between fit

The accident analysis of mobile mine machinery in Indian opencast coal mines.

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, R; Ghosh, A K

2014-01-01

This paper presents the analysis of large mining machinery related accidents in Indian opencast coal mines. The trends of coal production, share of mining methods in production, machinery deployment in open cast mines, size and population of machinery, accidents due to machinery, types and causes of accidents have been analysed from the year 1995 to 2008. The scrutiny of accidents during this period reveals that most of the responsible factors are machine reversal, haul road design, human fault, operator's fault, machine fault, visibility and dump design. Considering the types of machines, namely, dumpers, excavators, dozers and loaders together the maximum number of fatal accidents has been caused by operator's faults and human faults jointly during the period from 1995 to 2008. The novel finding of this analysis is that large machines with state-of-the-art safety system did not reduce the fatal accidents in Indian opencast coal mines.

Evolution of life history and behavior in Hominidae: towards phylogenetic reconstruction of the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor.

Science.gov (United States)

Duda, Pavel; Zrzavý, Jan

2013-10-01

The origin of the fundamental behavioral differences between humans and our closest living relatives is one of the central issues of evolutionary anthropology. The prominent, chimpanzee-based referential model of early hominin behavior has recently been challenged on the basis of broad multispecies comparisons and newly discovered fossil evidence. Here, we argue that while behavioral data on extant great apes are extremely relevant for reconstruction of ancestral behaviors, these behaviors should be reconstructed trait by trait using formal phylogenetic methods. Using the widely accepted hominoid phylogenetic tree, we perform a series of character optimization analyses using 65 selected life-history and behavioral characters for all extant hominid species. This analysis allows us to reconstruct the character states of the last common ancestors of Hominoidea, Hominidae, and the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor. Our analyses demonstrate that many fundamental behavioral and life-history attributes of hominids (including humans) are evidently ancient and likely inherited from the common ancestor of all hominids. However, numerous behaviors present in extant great apes represent their own terminal autapomorphies (both uniquely derived and homoplastic). Any evolutionary model that uses a single extant species to explain behavioral evolution of early hominins is therefore of limited use. In contrast, phylogenetic reconstruction of ancestral states is able to provide a detailed suite of behavioral, ecological and life-history characters for each hypothetical ancestor. The living great apes therefore play an important role for the confident identification of the traits found in the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor, some of which are likely to represent behaviors of the fossil hominins. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analysis of heavy radiological accidents in NPP and gamma-irradiators

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Angelov, V [Civil Defence Administration, Sofia (Bulgaria); Semova, T; Bonchev, Ts [Sofia Univ. (Bulgaria). Fizicheski Fakultet

1996-12-31

A review of several heavy radiological accidents, their cause, character, radioactivity emission, victims and economical impact is presented in the form of uniform tables. Eleven cases of incidents in power plants and 4 cases of accidents involving powerful gamma irradiators are considered. Radiological accidents in Bulgaria, not connected with the Kozloduy NPP, are listed. The human factor has been identified as the main cause for most of the accidents. It is stressed that the probability of heavy accident increases at the time of reactor refuelling, repair or testing. Technical failures could be eliminated by improved check and diagnostics procedures. 2 tabs., 12 refs.

Analysis of heavy radiological accidents in NPP and gamma-irradiators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Angelov, V.; Semova, T.; Bonchev, Ts.

1995-01-01

A review of several heavy radiological accidents, their cause, character, radioactivity emission, victims and economical impact is presented in the form of uniform tables. Eleven cases of incidents in power plants and 4 cases of accidents involving powerful gamma irradiators are considered. Radiological accidents in Bulgaria, not connected with the Kozloduy NPP, are listed. The human factor has been identified as the main cause for most of the accidents. It is stressed that the probability of heavy accident increases at the time of reactor refuelling, repair or testing. Technical failures could be eliminated by improved check and diagnostics procedures. 2 tabs., 12 refs

Organizational factors and reoccurrence protection on the JCO nuclear critical accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takano, Kenichi

2000-01-01

A nuclear critical accident formed at a nuclear fuel conversion factory in Tokai-mura on September, 1999 became gradually clear not to be a simple human error formed at a level of workmen but to be an organizational error or accident relating to various organizational factors. As a nuclear power facility adopts a depth protection system fundamentally, a large accident with serious danger would not form only by a single trouble and a human error and unless some factors overlaps. By reviewing recent serious accidents and troubles, all of them seem to have a keyword of 'organizational factor'. In the JCO accident, there are some organizational factors such as a climate deviating from a manual, insufficient and loose check against change of procedure, reduction of operators from a reason of profit priority, attitude on priority of working efficiency, and so forth, which are partially common to the Chernobyl accident. Recently, accidents and troubles impossible to make them a cause of simple human error by a person but to have to say an organizational error, have increased. This trend seems to depend upon not only complication and scale-up of technology system but also graduate change of social and management systems operating them. Therefore, it seems to be necessary to introduce a concept of depth protection (multiple protection) in order to keep its reliability and safety when complicating and scaling-up of system. (G.K.)

The Nrf2-inducers tanshinone I and dihydrotanshinone protect human skin cells and reconstructed human skin against solar simulated UV☆

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, Shasha; Justiniano, Rebecca; Zhang, Donna D.; Wondrak, Georg T.

2013-01-01

Exposure to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a causative factor in skin photocarcinogenesis and photoaging, and an urgent need exists for improved strategies for skin photoprotection. The redox-sensitive transcription factor Nrf2 (nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2), a master regulator of the cellular antioxidant defense against environmental electrophilic insult, has recently emerged as an important determinant of cutaneous damage from solar UV, and the concept of pharmacological activation of Nrf2 has attracted considerable attention as a novel approach to skin photoprotection. In this study, we examined feasibility of using tanshinones, a novel class of phenanthrenequinone-based cytoprotective Nrf2 inducers derived from the medicinal plant Salvia miltiorrhiza, for protection of cultured human skin cells and reconstructed human skin against solar simulated UV. Using a dual luciferase reporter assay in human Hs27 dermal fibroblasts pronounced transcriptional activation of Nrf2 by four major tanshinones [tanshinone I (T-I), dihydrotanshinone (DHT), tanshinone IIA (T-II-A) and cryptotanshinone (CT)] was detected. In fibroblasts, the more potent tanshinones T-I and DHT caused a significant increase in Nrf2 protein half-life via blockage of ubiquitination, ultimately resulting in upregulated expression of cytoprotective Nrf2 target genes (GCLC, NQO1) with the elevation of cellular glutathione levels. Similar tanshinone-induced changes were also observed in HaCaT keratinocytes. T-I and DHT pretreatment caused significant suppression of skin cell death induced by solar simulated UV and riboflavin-sensitized UVA. Moreover, feasibility of tanshinone-based cutaneous photoprotection was tested employing a human skin reconstruct exposed to solar simulated UV (80 mJ/cm2 UVB; 1.53 J/cm2 UVA). The occurrence of markers of epidermal solar insult (cleaved procaspase 3, pycnotic nuclei, eosinophilic cytoplasm, acellular cavities) was significantly attenuated in DHT

The Nrf2-inducers tanshinone I and dihydrotanshinone protect human skin cells and reconstructed human skin against solar simulated UV.

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, Shasha; Justiniano, Rebecca; Zhang, Donna D; Wondrak, Georg T

2013-01-01

Exposure to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a causative factor in skin photocarcinogenesis and photoaging, and an urgent need exists for improved strategies for skin photoprotection. The redox-sensitive transcription factor Nrf2 (nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2), a master regulator of the cellular antioxidant defense against environmental electrophilic insult, has recently emerged as an important determinant of cutaneous damage from solar UV, and the concept of pharmacological activation of Nrf2 has attracted considerable attention as a novel approach to skin photoprotection. In this study, we examined feasibility of using tanshinones, a novel class of phenanthrenequinone-based cytoprotective Nrf2 inducers derived from the medicinal plant Salvia miltiorrhiza, for protection of cultured human skin cells and reconstructed human skin against solar simulated UV. Using a dual luciferase reporter assay in human Hs27 dermal fibroblasts pronounced transcriptional activation of Nrf2 by four major tanshinones [tanshinone I (T-I), dihydrotanshinone (DHT), tanshinone IIA (T-II-A) and cryptotanshinone (CT)] was detected. In fibroblasts, the more potent tanshinones T-I and DHT caused a significant increase in Nrf2 protein half-life via blockage of ubiquitination, ultimately resulting in upregulated expression of cytoprotective Nrf2 target genes (GCLC, NQO1) with the elevation of cellular glutathione levels. Similar tanshinone-induced changes were also observed in HaCaT keratinocytes. T-I and DHT pretreatment caused significant suppression of skin cell death induced by solar simulated UV and riboflavin-sensitized UVA. Moreover, feasibility of tanshinone-based cutaneous photoprotection was tested employing a human skin reconstruct exposed to solar simulated UV (80 mJ/cm(2) UVB; 1.53 J/cm(2) UVA). The occurrence of markers of epidermal solar insult (cleaved procaspase 3, pycnotic nuclei, eosinophilic cytoplasm, acellular cavities) was significantly attenuated in DHT

The Nrf2-inducers tanshinone I and dihydrotanshinone protect human skin cells and reconstructed human skin against solar simulated UV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shasha Tao

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Exposure to solar ultraviolet (UV radiation is a causative factor in skin photocarcinogenesis and photoaging, and an urgent need exists for improved strategies for skin photoprotection. The redox-sensitive transcription factor Nrf2 (nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2, a master regulator of the cellular antioxidant defense against environmental electrophilic insult, has recently emerged as an important determinant of cutaneous damage from solar UV, and the concept of pharmacological activation of Nrf2 has attracted considerable attention as a novel approach to skin photoprotection. In this study, we examined feasibility of using tanshinones, a novel class of phenanthrenequinone-based cytoprotective Nrf2 inducers derived from the medicinal plant Salvia miltiorrhiza, for protection of cultured human skin cells and reconstructed human skin against solar simulated UV. Using a dual luciferase reporter assay in human Hs27 dermal fibroblasts pronounced transcriptional activation of Nrf2 by four major tanshinones [tanshinone I (T-I, dihydrotanshinone (DHT, tanshinone IIA (T-II-A and cryptotanshinone (CT] was detected. In fibroblasts, the more potent tanshinones T-I and DHT caused a significant increase in Nrf2 protein half-life via blockage of ubiquitination, ultimately resulting in upregulated expression of cytoprotective Nrf2 target genes (GCLC, NQO1 with the elevation of cellular glutathione levels. Similar tanshinone-induced changes were also observed in HaCaT keratinocytes. T-I and DHT pretreatment caused significant suppression of skin cell death induced by solar simulated UV and riboflavin-sensitized UVA. Moreover, feasibility of tanshinone-based cutaneous photoprotection was tested employing a human skin reconstruct exposed to solar simulated UV (80 mJ/cm2 UVB; 1.53 J/cm2 UVA. The occurrence of markers of epidermal solar insult (cleaved procaspase 3, pycnotic nuclei, eosinophilic cytoplasm, acellular cavities was significantly attenuated in DHT

Use of reports on accidents with sealed sources to conceive scenarios of human intrusion into waste repositories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leite, Eliana Rodrigues; Oliveira, Rosana Lagua de; Vicente, Roberto

2011-01-01

The Radioactive Waste Management Department (GRR) at the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute (IPEN) develops the concept of a repository for disposal of disused sealed radioactive sources (SRS) in a deep borehole. In this concept, the estimated few hundred thousand SRS of the Brazilian inventory will be packaged in lead containers stacked in an encased and cemented borehole, drilled to a depth of a few hundred meters, in a crystalline bedrock geological setting. A generic safety analysis for this concept of repository must achieve two goals: to be acceptable by regulatory bodies and be simple enough so that the engineering of licensing a facility has technical and economical feasibility. It must be kept in mind that the disposition of the SRS must be paid by the users of the sources, and thal the costs of applying the existing methods for the performance and safety assessment of a geological repository dedicated exclusively for sealed sources may be exceedingly high. In this respect, the disposal concept development work includes the search for methodologies that could be applied to the disposal facility for demonstrating safety without unduly increasing the project costs. One line of research is to identify and characterize human intrusion scenarios that could result in significant radiation exposures. Results of a survey on the published literature and on databases of reported accidents involving sealed sources are being used to construct a number of model accident scenarios with which the time evolution of the exposure risks can be assessed for each radioisotope inventory and each relevant disposed of source. Among the 252 accident descriptions recovered in the survey, the 1954 Russian accident report with Po-210 is the oldest, and that of the 2010 accident in Mayapuri, India, with a Co-60 source is the latest. The results of this assessment will be used as a safety indicator of the disposal concept. (author)

Qualitative analysis of the man-organization system in accident conditions for nuclear installations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Farcasiu, Mita; Prisecaru, Ilie

2010-01-01

In this paper a model of the human performance investigation of accident conditions in the operation of the nuclear installation is developed. A framework for analyses of the human action in the man-organization system context is achieved. The goal of this model is to identify the possible roots causing human errors which could occur during the evolution of the accident by the qualitative analysis of the interfaces in man-organization system. These interfaces represent the main elements which characterize the implication of the organization in human performance. The results of this paper are the interfaces of the man-organization and their circumstances in which human performance could fail. Also, another result is a pre-designed framework which could help in the investigation of an accident. (authors)

A Layered Approach for Robust Spatial Virtual Human Pose Reconstruction Using a Still Image

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chengyu Guo

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Pedestrian detection and human pose estimation are instructive for reconstructing a three-dimensional scenario and for robot navigation, particularly when large amounts of vision data are captured using various data-recording techniques. Using an unrestricted capture scheme, which produces occlusions or breezing, the information describing each part of a human body and the relationship between each part or even different pedestrians must be present in a still image. Using this framework, a multi-layered, spatial, virtual, human pose reconstruction framework is presented in this study to recover any deficient information in planar images. In this framework, a hierarchical parts-based deep model is used to detect body parts by using the available restricted information in a still image and is then combined with spatial Markov random fields to re-estimate the accurate joint positions in the deep network. Then, the planar estimation results are mapped onto a virtual three-dimensional space using multiple constraints to recover any deficient spatial information. The proposed approach can be viewed as a general pre-processing method to guide the generation of continuous, three-dimensional motion data. The experiment results of this study are used to describe the effectiveness and usability of the proposed approach.

Criticality accidents in solution (CRAC and SILENE programmes) and complementary studies of accidents; radiation dosimetry in human organism during the CRAC programme

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barbry, M.; Dousset, M.

C.R.A.C. (CRiticality occurring ACcidentally) programme is intended to study experimentally the development of a criticality accident as it could occur when handling solutions of fissile material as well as the radiological consequences of such an accident. The fissile matter solutions have been chosen (a) for practical considerations of use and (b) because the probability of an accident occurring seems greater with this type of environment, as the known accidents have shown. The programme is twofold: study of accident physics: form of the evolution (peak, plateau, oscillations, boil up of solutions) the most probable maximum power, minimal power, flux and radiation spectra emitted, freed energy, associated effects, radiolysis, constraints, etc., study of radiological consequences: area dosimetry, individual dosimetry, radiobiological studies, etc. Additional criticality Accident experiments have been and continue to be made on the SILENE reactor in the following principal domains: determination of the emission rate of gaseous fission products and aerosols, area dosimetry and health dosimetry in the presence of shields around the core to vary the neutron and gamma components of the radiation field. Improvement in the knowledge of certain particular aspects of the power excursion, radiolysis gas and pressure wave, experiments of the ''boiling'' type [fr

Reconstruction of human exposure to heavy metals using synchrotron radiation microbeams in prehistoric and modern humans

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koizumi, Akio; Azechi, Miki; Shirasawa, Koyo

2009-01-01

Teeth can serve as records of environmental exposure to heavy metals during their formation. We applied a new technology - synchrotron radiation microbeams (SRXRF) - for analysis of heavy metals in human permanent teeth in modern and historical samples. Each tooth was cut in half. A longitudinal section 200 μm in thickness was subjected to the determination of the heavy metal content by SRXRF or conventional analytical methods (ICP-MS analysis or reduction-aeration atomic absorption spectrometry). The relative concentrations of Pb, Hg, Cu and Zn measured by SRXRF were translated in concentrations (in g of heavy metal/g of enamel) using calibration curves by the two analytical methods. Concentrations in teeth in the modern females (n=5) were 1.2±0.5 μg/g (n=5) for Pb; 1.7±0.2 ng/g for Hg; 0.9±1.1 μg/g for Cu; 150±24.6 μg/g for Zn. The levels of Pb were highest in the teeth samples obtained from the humans of the Edo era (1603-1868 AD) (0.5-4.0 μg/g, n=4). No trend was observed in this study in the Hg content in teeth during 3,000 years. The concentrations of Cu were highest in teeth of two medieval craftsmen (57.0 and 220 μg/g). The levels of Zn were higher in modern subjects (P<0.05) than those in the Jomon (∼1000 BC) to Edo periods [113.2±27.4 (μg/g, n=11)]. Reconstruction of developmental exposure history to lead in a famous court painter of the Edo period (18th century) revealed high levels of Pb (7.1-22.0 μg/g) in his childhood. SRXRF is useful a method for reconstructing human exposures in very long trends. (author)

Analysis Fukushima 11032011 -- Extended analysis of the Fukushima accident on 11 March 2011 under special consideration of human and organisational factors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2011-08-01

After the reactor accident in Fukushima Dai-ichi on 11 March 2011, the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) launched an extended analysis of the accident with the following goals: a) a comprehensive understanding of the accident unrolling and of the contributing factors; b) the identification of resulting short-, mean- and long-term requirements for the operators of Swiss nuclear power plants; c) considerations on the own surveillance activity; d) the verification of the reports delivered by the Swiss plant operators, who have to check their own plant after each incident declared as of INES 2 level or higher, whichever the location in the whole world. Undoubtedly, the design of the nuclear power plants at Fukushima Dai-ichi was inappropriate in what regards the tsunami induced by the earthquake, and that this was a key factor that led to the accident. The questions here are rather how it came to this clear design insufficiency and why the accident developed in the way it did. According to ENSI, answers to these questions require both technical as well as human and organisational considerations. ENSI had no direct access to information sources and, therefore, had to check the reliability of information obtained from public sources, especially from authorities, plant operators, expert organisations and, last but not least, media reports. The understanding gained in this way should enable a better evaluation of the situation in Switzerland and lead to the definition of the most urgent measures to be implemented. Since the principal cause of the Fukushima accident is a failure in the plant design, it is necessary to critically reconsider the design of the Swiss reactors to make sure that no such mistake has been done here. Another question is why this evident design failure was not identified earlier in the course of the decades of operation, and why no improvement has been made. In this context, human and organisational factors seem to play an important

Estimation of radiation dose received by the victims in a Chinese radiation accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Liangan; Xu, Zhiyong; Jia, Delin; Dai, Guangfu

2002-01-01

In April 1999, a radiation accident happened in Henan province, China. In this accident, A 60 Co ex-service therapy radiation source was purchased by a waster purchase company, then some persons break the lead pot and taken out the stainless steel drawer with the radiation source, then sell the drawer to another small company, and the buyer reserved the drawer in his bed room until all of his family members shoot their cookies. During the event, seven persons received overdose exposure, the dose rang is about 1.0 - 6.0Gy, especially, all of the buyer family members meet with bad radiation damage. In order to assess the accident consequences and cure the patients of the bad radiation damage, it is necessary to estimate the doses of the Victims in the accident. In the dose reconstruction of the accident victims, we adopted biologic dose method, experiment-simulating method with an anthropomorphic phantom, and theory simulating method with Monte Carlo to estimate the doses of the victims. In this paper, the frame of the accident and the Monte Carlo method in our work will be described, the main dose results of the three methods mentioned above will be reported and a comparison analysis will be presented

Information on the Chernobyl NPP accident and its consequencies prepared for IAEA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1986-11-01

The information on the accident at the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl NPP and its consequences prepared for IAEA on the basis of the conclusions made by the Government commission constituted for investigating the accident causes and implementing the necessary emergency and reconstruction measures is given. The accident with reactor core disruption and partial destruction of the building Lappened on 26.04.86 at 1 hour and 23 minutes. The accident occurred before reactor shut-down for planned repairs during the testing of one of turbogenerators. The design features of the RBMK-1000 reactor plant, its main physical characteristics and parameters of the NPP safety system are considered. The chronology of the accident development and the results of analysis carried out using a mathematical model are given. The causes of the accident are analyzed. The measures for preventing the accident development and lessening its consequences as well as those for the environment radioactive contamination control and sanitary provisions are described in detail. The conclusion is made that the original cause of the accident is highly improbable combination of disorder and errors in operational conditions made by the personnel of the power unit. It is emphasized that development of the world nuclear engineering, besides advantages in the field of power supply and natural resources conservation, incurs also damages of international character. Among these are transboundary radioactivity transport, in particular, during serious radiation accidents and the danger of international terrorism and specific radiation hazard of nuclear objects under war conditions. All this defines the key necessity of deep international cooperation in the field of nuclear power engineering and its safeguarding.

Postulated accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ullrich, W.

1980-01-01

This lecture on 'Postulated Accidents' is the first of a series of lectures on the dynamic and transient behaviour of nuclear power plants, especially pressurized water reactors. The main points covered will be: Reactivity Accidents, Transients (Intact Loop) and Loss of Cooland Accidents (LOCA) including small leak. This lecture will discuss the accident analysis in general, the definition of the various operational phases, the accident classification, and, as an example, an accident sequence analysis on the basis of 'Postulated Accidents'. (orig./RW)

Overview of Brazilian industrial radiography accidents with cutaneous radiation syndrome

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lima, C.M.A.; Silva, F.C.A. da

2017-01-01

It is well documented that industrial radiography is related to radiological accidents, which makes it the highest potential risk for human health. More than 80 radiological accidents happened in the world that includes 6 Brazilian accidents with Cutaneous Radiation Syndrome. Five of them happened with 192 Ir and one with 60 Co radioactive sources. Nineteen members of the public and 8 radiographers were involved. All of them suffered severe hands and fingers injuries. The Brazilian radiological accident happened in 1985 with 16 persons is analyzed showing causes, consequences, radiation doses and lessons learned. (author)

Metabolism in tooth enamel and reliability of retrospective EPR dosimetry connected with Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brik, A.; Radchuk, V.; Scherbina, O.; Matyash, M.; Gaver, O.

1996-01-01

It is shown that the results of retrospective EPR dosimetry by tooth enamel are essentially determined by the fact that tooth enamel is the mineral of biological origin. The structure of tooth enamel, properties of radiation defects and the role of metabolism in tooth enamel are discussed. It is shown that at deep metamorphic modifications tooth enamel don't save information about its radiation history. The reliability and accuracy of retrospective EPR dosimetry are discussed. Because after Chernobyl accident have passed 10 years the application of tooth enamel for reconstruction of doses which are connected with Chernobyl accident need care and additional investigations

Accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lutz, R.J.; Monty, B.S.; Liparulo, N.J.; Desaedeleer, G.

1989-01-01

The foundation of the framework for a Severe Accident Management Program is the contained in the Probabilistic Safety Study (PSS) or the Individual Plant Evaluations (IPE) for a specific plant. The development of a Severe Accident Management Program at a plant is based on the use of the information, in conjunction with other applicable information. A Severe Accident Management Program must address both accident prevention and accident mitigation. The overall Severe Accident Management framework must address these two facets, as a living program in terms of gathering the evaluating information, the readiness to respond to an event. Significant international experience in the development of severe accident management programs exist which should provide some direction for the development of Severe Accident Management in the U.S. This paper reports that the two most important elements of a Severe Accident Management Program are the Emergency Consultation process and the standards for measuring the effectiveness of individual Severe Accident Management Programs at utilities

Emergency feature. Great east Japan earthquake disaster Fukushima Daiichi accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kawata, Tomio; Tsujikura, Yonezo; Kitamura, Toshiro

2011-01-01

The Tohoku Pacific Ocean earthquake occurred in March 11, 2011. The disastrous tsunami attacked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants after automatically shutdown by the earthquake and all motor operated pumps became inoperable due to station black out. Despite the strenuous efforts of operators, if caused serious accident such as loss of cooling function, hydrogen explosion and release of large amount of radioactive materials into the environment, leading to nuclear power emergency that ordered resident to evacuate or remain indoors. This emergency feature consisted of four articles. The first was the interview with the president of JAIF (Japan Atomic Industrial Forum) on how to identify the cause of the accident completely, intensify safety assurance measures and promote discussions on a role of nuclear power in the nation's entire energy policy toward the reconstruction. Others were reactor states and events sequence after the accident with trend data of radiation in the reactor site, statement of president of AESJ (Atomic Energy Society of Japan) on nuclear crisis following Tohoku Pacific Ocean earthquake our response and my experience in evacuation life. (T. Tanaka)

STUDY OF ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ACCIDENT VICTIMS ADMITTED IN GAUHATI MEDICAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL, ASSAM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rocket Chandra

2016-05-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND In the present scenario, road traffic accidents have become a major cause of human mortality and morbidity. Accidents are increasing at alarming rates in India. The objective of our study was to assess the socio-demographic profile of road traffic accident victims admitted in a tertiary care setting, and to assess the pattern of injuries. METHODOLOGY The present study is prospective and analytical hospital based study. RESULTS The present studies show that more than 70% of the victims are in the age group of below 45 years (n=3196 and with male preponderance. Out of 14364 accident patients visiting the emergency department of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, 4953 patients were admitted. The majorities of the patients (n=2995 were admitted in surgery department and 1586 in orthopaedic department. CONCLUSIONS Several factors are responsible for causing road accidents such as drunk driving, lack of awareness of traffic rules, nonadherence to safety measures. To reduce morbidity and mortality following road accidents, comprehensive policy has to be adopted by the government

ASSESSING ACCIDENT HOTSPOTS BY USING VOLUNTEERED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Golnoosh

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Due to the ever-increasing number of vehicles, transportation issues, especially transportation safety have gained great importance. One of the social problems in the world, and particularly in developing countries, which each year imposes great casualties, and economic, social and cultural costs on society, is traffic accidents. Traffic accidents cause waste of time and assets and loss of human resources in society, therefore studies and measures to reduce accidents and damage caused by them, particularly in recent decades, has become important. One of the suggested ways to deal with the problem of car accidents is the modeling of accident-prone points, as by identifying these points, factors affecting accidents can be identified, and elimination of these factors leads to a reduction in accidents. Numerous studies have been conducted in this respect, using official police data to identify these points and performing necessary analysis on them. Official data has gaps and shortcomings. Using Volunteered Geographic Information to determine accident-prone venues can be a suitable answer to the problems of using official data. The aim of this study is the use of volunteered geographic information in relation to the accidents and their causes. By taking into account factors affecting traffic accidents in the study area, and determining the importance of each factor, as well as the severity-of-accidents parameter, and using the Expert Choice software, a decision-making software based on the hierarchical analysis, high-risk venues are determined, and the accident-prone points of the study area are specified.

Hull loss accident model for narrow body commercial aircraft

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Somchanok Tiabtiamrat

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Accidents with narrow body aircraft were statistically evaluated covering six families of commercial aircraft includingBoeing B737, Airbus A320, McDonnell Douglas MD80, Tupolev TU134/TU154 and Antonov AN124. A risk indicator for eachflight phase was developed based on motion characteristics, duration time, and the presence of adverse weather conditions.The estimated risk levels based on these risk indicators then developed from the risk indicator. Regression analysis indicatedvery good agreement between the estimated risk level and the accident ratio of hull loss cases per number of delivered aircraft.The effect of time on the hull loss accident ratio per delivered aircraft was assessed for B737, A320 and MD80. Equationsrepresenting the effect of time on hull loss accident ratio per delivered aircraft were proposed for B737, A320, and MD80,while average values of hull loss accident ratio per delivered aircraft were found for TU134, TU154, and AN 124. Accidentprobability equations were then developed for each family of aircraft that the probability of an aircraft in a hull loss accidentcould be estimated for any aircraft family, flight phase, presence of adverse weather factor, hour of day, day of week, monthof year, pilot age, and pilot flight hour experience. A simplified relationship between estimated hull loss accident probabilityand unsafe acts by human was proposed. Numerical investigation of the relationship between unsafe acts by human andfatality ratio suggested that the fatality ratio in hull loss accident was dominated primarily by the flight phase media.

ECONOMIC COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH MOTORBIKE ACCIDENTS IN KATHMANDU, NEPAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diksha Sapkota

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background: Road traffic accidents, considered as global tragedies, are in increasing trend however, the safety situation is very severe in developing countries incurring substantial amount of human, economic and social costs. Motorcycle crashes, the commonest form, occur mostly on economically active population. However, there is limited coverage of studies on economic burden of motorcycle crashes. This study aims to estimate the total cost and DALYs lost due to motorbike accidents among victims of Kathmandu Valley.Materials and Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted among the patients having history of motorbike accidents within past twelve months and at least 3 months from the date of data collection. Interview was conducted using proforma among 100 victims of accidents and their care giver in case of death from November 15, 2014 to May 15, 2015. Cost estimation of motorbike accident was done based on human capital approach. Data collection tool was pretested and collected data were analyzed by SPSS and Microsoft excel. Results: Males (79% belonging to the economically productive age group shared the highest proportion among total accidents victims. Most common reason for accidents was reported to be poor road condition (41%. Indirect cost was found to be significantly higher than direct costs highlighting its negative impact on economy of family and nation due to productivity loss. Total Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs lost per person was found to be 490 years and national estimation showed large burden of motorbike accidents due to huge DALY loss.Conclusions: For low resource countries like Nepal, high economic costs of motorbike accidents can pose additional burden to the fragile health system. These accidents can be prevented, and their consequences can be alleviated. There is an urgent need for reinforcement of appropriate interventions and legislation to decrease the magnitude of it and its associated grave

Measuring and Reconstructing the Brain at the Synaptic Scale: Towards a Biofidelic Human Brain in silico

OpenAIRE

NeuroData; CE, Priebe; Burns, R.; RJ, Vogelstein

2015-01-01

Vogelstein JT, Priebe CE, Burns R, Vogelstein RJ, Lichtman J. Measuring and Reconstructing the Brain at the Synaptic Scale: Towards a Biofidelic Human Brain in silico. DARPA Neural Engineering, Science and Technology Forum, 2010

Reconstruction of the external dose of evacuees from the contaminated areas based on simulation modelling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meckbach, R.; Chumak, V.V.

1996-01-01

Model calculations are being performed for the reconstruction of individual external gamma doses of population evacuated during the Chernobyl accident from the city of Pripyat and other settlements of the 30-km zone. The models are based on sets of dose rate measurements performed during the accident, on individual behavior histories of more than 30000 evacuees obtained by questionnaire survey and on location factors determined for characteristic housing buildings. Location factors were calculated by Monte Carlo simulations of photon transport for a typical housing block and village houses. Stochastic models for individual external dose reconstruction are described. Using Monte Carlo methods, frequency distributions representing the uncertainty of doses are calculated from an assessment of the uncertainty of the data. The determination of dose rate distributions in Pripyat is discussed. Exemplary results for individual external doses are presented

Overview of Brazilian industrial radiography accidents with cutaneous radiation syndrome

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lima, C.M.A.; Silva, F.C.A. da, E-mail: dasilva@ird.gov.br [Instituto de Radioproteção e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

2017-07-01

It is well documented that industrial radiography is related to radiological accidents, which makes it the highest potential risk for human health. More than 80 radiological accidents happened in the world that includes 6 Brazilian accidents with Cutaneous Radiation Syndrome. Five of them happened with {sup 192}Ir and one with {sup 60}Co radioactive sources. Nineteen members of the public and 8 radiographers were involved. All of them suffered severe hands and fingers injuries. The Brazilian radiological accident happened in 1985 with 16 persons is analyzed showing causes, consequences, radiation doses and lessons learned. (author)

Social aspects concerning the cesium-137 accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chaves, Elza Guedes

1997-01-01

The present work aims to understand how social representations constructed upon nuclear energy have influenced on molding and orienting public's behavior in the presence of the accident that occurred in Goiania with the capsule of Cesium-137. As a starting point, it is accepted here that panic caused by that accident could be properly understood only if dimension of subjectivity is taken into consideration. This perspective is required whenever events that put human life and environment in risk happen. Facing the accident, people internalized radioactivity, an unknown element, as certainty of cancer and death despite the fact that cancer and death could only outcome in case there had been excessive exposure to radioactivity. (author)

Radiation accidents over the last 60 years

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nenot, Jean-Claude

2009-01-01

Since the end of the Second World War, industrial and medical uses of radiation have been considerably increasing. Accidental overexposures of persons, in either the occupational or public field, have caused deaths and severe injuries and complications. The rate of severe accidents seems to increase with time, especially those involving the public; in addition, accidents are often not immediately recognised, which means that the real number of events remains unknown. Human factors, as well as the lack of elementary rules in the domains of radiological safety and protection, such as inadequate training, play a major role in the occurrence of the accidents which have been reported in the industrial, medical and military arenas. (review)

Surgical Reconstruction of Lower Face Degloving.

Science.gov (United States)

Faria, Paulo Esteves Pinto; de Souza Carvalho, Abrahão Cavalcante Gomes; Masalskas, Bárbara; Chihara, Letícia; Sant'Ana, Eduardo; Filho, Osvaldo Magro

2016-10-01

One of the most impressive soft tissue injuries is the facial degloving, normally associated with industrial machines and traffic accidents. This injury is characterized by the separation of the skin and cartilage from the bones, compromising the soft tissues correlated in the trauma area, nerves, and blood vessels. A 28-year-old patient, male, was referred to Araçatuba's Santa Casa Hospital, after a motorcycle accident, hitting his face on the sidewalk. The patient was conscious, oriented, denying fainting and unconsciousness during the accident, and complaining of pain in the nasal region of the face. The suture of wounds was performed using 5-0 absorbable sutures for muscle planes, and reconstruction of the septum and nasal cartilages. The skin was sutured with interrupted stitches using 6-0 nylon. After reducing the edema, a slight increase in alar base was observed. Subsequently, the alar base cinch suture was performed aiming to bring the alar bases to a measure of 34.0 mm in diameter. As a conclusion, the knowledge of the anatomy of the region involved, the healing of tissues, and suture techniques for the facial region process were critical to the successful treatment. The evaluation of the alar base in degloving cases can involve aesthetic features.

Development Of Dynamic Probabilistic Safety Assessment: The Accident Dynamic Simulator (ADS) Tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chang, Y.H.; Mosleh, A.; Dang, V.N.

2003-01-01

The development of a dynamic methodology for Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) addresses the complex interactions between the behaviour of technical systems and personnel response in the evolution of accident scenarios. This paper introduces the discrete dynamic event tree, a framework for dynamic PSA, and its implementation in the Accident Dynamic Simulator (ADS) tool. Dynamic event tree tools generate and quantify accident scenarios through coupled simulation models of the plant physical processes, its automatic systems, the equipment reliability, and the human response. The current research on the framework, the ADS tool, and on Human Reliability Analysis issues within dynamic PSA, is discussed. (author)

Development Of Dynamic Probabilistic Safety Assessment: The Accident Dynamic Simulator (ADS) Tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chang, Y.H.; Mosleh, A.; Dang, V.N

2003-03-01

The development of a dynamic methodology for Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) addresses the complex interactions between the behaviour of technical systems and personnel response in the evolution of accident scenarios. This paper introduces the discrete dynamic event tree, a framework for dynamic PSA, and its implementation in the Accident Dynamic Simulator (ADS) tool. Dynamic event tree tools generate and quantify accident scenarios through coupled simulation models of the plant physical processes, its automatic systems, the equipment reliability, and the human response. The current research on the framework, the ADS tool, and on Human Reliability Analysis issues within dynamic PSA, is discussed. (author)

Reconstruction and outlook of the radionuclide transport in the Mediterranean seas chain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maderich, M.

1999-01-01

A set of models was developed to reconstruct and predict in 1960-2010 the 137 Cs contamination in the system of Mediterranean seas that was result of the testing of nuclear weapons and the Chernobyl accident. It incorporates the submodels of the Black Sea, Azov Sea, Marmara Sea, Western and Eastern Mediterranean

Comprehensive reconstruction andvisualization of non-coding regulatorynetworks in human

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vincenzo eBonnici

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Research attention has been powered to understand the functional roles of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs. Many studies have demonstrated their deregulation in cancer and other human disorders. ncRNAs are also present in extracellular human body fluids such as serum and plasma, giving them a great potential as non-invasive biomarkers. However, non-coding RNAs have been relatively recently discovered and a comprehensive database including all of them is still missing. Reconstructing and visualizing the network of ncRNAs interactions are important steps to understand their regulatory mechanism in complex systems. This work presents ncRNA-DB, a NoSQL database that integrates ncRNAs data interactions from a large number of well established online repositories. The interactions involve RNA, DNA, proteins and diseases. ncRNA-DB is available at http://ncrnadb.scienze.univr.it/ncrnadb/. It is equipped with three interfaces: web based, command line and a Cytoscape app called ncINetView. By accessing only one resource, users can search for ncRNAs and their interactions, build a network annotated with all known ncRNAs and associated diseases, and use all visual and mining features available in Cytoscape.

Reconstruction of Hyaline Cartilage Deep Layer Properties in 3-Dimensional Cultures of Human Articular Chondrocytes.

Science.gov (United States)

Nanduri, Vibudha; Tattikota, Surendra Mohan; T, Avinash Raj; Sriramagiri, Vijaya Rama Rao; Kantipudi, Suma; Pande, Gopal

2014-06-01

Articular cartilage (AC) injuries and malformations are commonly noticed because of trauma or age-related degeneration. Many methods have been adopted for replacing or repairing the damaged tissue. Currently available AC repair methods, in several cases, fail to yield good-quality long-lasting results, perhaps because the reconstructed tissue lacks the cellular and matrix properties seen in hyaline cartilage (HC). To reconstruct HC tissue from 2-dimensional (2D) and 3-dimensional (3D) cultures of AC-derived human chondrocytes that would specifically exhibit the cellular and biochemical properties of the deep layer of HC. Descriptive laboratory study. Two-dimensional cultures of human AC-derived chondrocytes were established in classical medium (CM) and newly defined medium (NDM) and maintained for a period of 6 weeks. These cells were suspended in 2 mm-thick collagen I gels, placed in 24-well culture inserts, and further cultured up to 30 days. Properties of chondrocytes, grown in 2D cultures and the reconstructed 3D cartilage tissue, were studied by optical and scanning electron microscopic techniques, immunohistochemistry, and cartilage-specific gene expression profiling by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and were compared with those of the deep layer of native human AC. Two-dimensional chondrocyte cultures grown in NDM, in comparison with those grown in CM, showed more chondrocyte-specific gene activity and matrix properties. The NDM-grown chondrocytes in 3D cultures also showed better reproduction of deep layer properties of HC, as confirmed by microscopic and gene expression analysis. The method used in this study can yield cartilage tissue up to approximately 1.6 cm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness that satisfies the very low cell density and matrix composition properties present in the deep layer of normal HC. This study presents a novel and reproducible method for long-term culture of AC-derived chondrocytes and reconstruction of cartilage

Human reliability analysis for venting a BWR Mark I during a severe accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nelson, W.R.; Blackman, H.S.

1986-01-01

A Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) was performed for the operator actions necessary to achieve containment venting for the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. This study was funded by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) and performed by the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). The goal of the analysis was to estimate Human Error Probabilities (HEPs) to determine the likelihood that operators would fail to complete the venting process. The analysis was performed for two generic accident sequences: anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) and station blackout. Two major methods were used to estimate the HEPs: Technique for Human Error rate Prediction (THERP) and Success Likelihood Index Methodology (SLIM). For the ATWS scenarios analyzed, the calculated HEPs ranged from 0.23 to 0.35, depending on the number of vent paths that are required to reduce the containment pressure. It should be noted that the confidence bounds around these HEPs are large, However, even when considering the large confidence range, the failure probabilities are larger than what is typical for normal operator actions. For station blackout, the HEP is 1.0, resulting from the dangerous environmental conditions that are present, assuming that plant management would not deliberately expose personnel to a potentially fatal environment. These results are based on the analysis of draft procedures for containment venting. It is probable that careful revision of the procedures could reduce the human error probabilities

Comparison of HRA methods based on WWER-1000 NPP real and simulated accident scenarios

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petkov, Gueorgui

2010-01-01

Full text: Adequate treatment of human interactions in probabilistic safety analysis (PSA) studies is a key to the understanding of accident sequences and their relative importance in overall risk. Human interactions with machines have long been recognized as important contributors to the safe operation of nuclear power plants (NPP). Human interactions affect the ordering of dominant accident sequences and hence have a significant effect on the risk of NPP. By virtue of the ability to combine the treatment of both human and hardware reliability in real accidents, NPP fullscope, multifunctional and computer-based simulators provide a unique way of developing an understanding of the importance of specific human actions for overall plant safety. Context dependent human reliability assessment (HRA) models, such as the holistic decision tree (HDT) and performance evaluation of teamwork (PET) methods, are the so-called second generation HRA techniques. The HDT model has been used for a number of PSA studies. The PET method reflects promising prospects for dealing with dynamic aspects of human performance. The paper presents a comparison of the two HRA techniques for calculation of post-accident human error probability in the PSA. The real and simulated event training scenario 'turbine's stop after loss of feedwater' based on standard PSA model assumptions is designed for WWER-1000 computer simulator and their detailed boundary conditions are described and analyzed. The error probability of post-accident individual actions will be calculated by means of each investigated technique based on student's computer simulator training archives

On the weighting of accident probabilities for evident emotive factors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dukes, J.A.

1979-01-01

Problems in risk management of the additive property of; accident risk costs, the special case of the infrequent disaster, and the correct amount to spend on accident prevention, are considered. The need for weighting by additional emotive factors is discussed. Such factors here considered are; the scale factor relating to the number of people who as a result of the accident are killed, the age factor which takes into account the novelty of the situation against the background of common human experience, and the comprehension factor which is a weighting associated with the extent to which the 'man in the street' may be expected to understand the mechanism of the accident. A table shows how these factors combine for a set of accident scenarios including radioactive spills and a loss of coolant reactor accident. (U.K.)

Thirty years after the Chernobyl accident: What lessons have we learnt?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beresford, N.A.; Fesenko, S.; Konoplev, A.; Skuterud, L.; Smith, J.T.; Voigt, G.

2016-01-01

April 2016 sees the 30 th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. As a consequence of the accident populations were relocated in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and remedial measures were put in place to reduce the entry of contaminants (primarily 134+137 Cs) into the human food chain in a number of countries throughout Europe. Remedial measures are still today in place in a number of countries, and areas of the former Soviet Union remain abandoned. The Chernobyl accident led to a large resurgence in radioecological studies both to aid remediation and to be able to make future predictions on the post-accident situation, but, also in recognition that more knowledge was required to cope with future accidents. In this paper we discuss, what in the authors' opinions, were the advances made in radioecology as a consequence of the Chernobyl accident. The areas we identified as being significantly advanced following Chernobyl were: the importance of semi-natural ecosystems in human dose formation; the characterisation and environmental behaviour of ‘hot particles'; the development and application of countermeasures; the “fixation” and long term bioavailability of radiocaesium and; the effects of radiation on plants and animals. - Highlights: • A review of 30 years of radioecological studies following the 1986 Chernobyl accident. • Key contributions to radioecology from post-Chernobyl research are discussed.

Probabilistic risk assessment for a loss of coolant accident in McMaster Nuclear Reactor and application of reliability physics model for modeling human reliability

Science.gov (United States)

Ha, Taesung

A probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) was conducted for a loss of coolant accident, (LOCA) in the McMaster Nuclear Reactor (MNR). A level 1 PRA was completed including event sequence modeling, system modeling, and quantification. To support the quantification of the accident sequence identified, data analysis using the Bayesian method and human reliability analysis (HRA) using the accident sequence evaluation procedure (ASEP) approach were performed. Since human performance in research reactors is significantly different from that in power reactors, a time-oriented HRA model (reliability physics model) was applied for the human error probability (HEP) estimation of the core relocation. This model is based on two competing random variables: phenomenological time and performance time. The response surface and direct Monte Carlo simulation with Latin Hypercube sampling were applied for estimating the phenomenological time, whereas the performance time was obtained from interviews with operators. An appropriate probability distribution for the phenomenological time was assigned by statistical goodness-of-fit tests. The human error probability (HEP) for the core relocation was estimated from these two competing quantities: phenomenological time and operators' performance time. The sensitivity of each probability distribution in human reliability estimation was investigated. In order to quantify the uncertainty in the predicted HEPs, a Bayesian approach was selected due to its capability of incorporating uncertainties in model itself and the parameters in that model. The HEP from the current time-oriented model was compared with that from the ASEP approach. Both results were used to evaluate the sensitivity of alternative huinan reliability modeling for the manual core relocation in the LOCA risk model. This exercise demonstrated the applicability of a reliability physics model supplemented with a. Bayesian approach for modeling human reliability and its potential

[Accidents and violence among women attended in Sentinel Emergency Services--Brazil, 2009].

Science.gov (United States)

Rodrigues, Celeste de Souza; Malta, Deborah Carvalho; Godinho, Tatau; Mascarenhas, Márcio Dênis Medeiros; da Silva, Marta Maria Alves; Silva, Rurany Ester

2012-09-01

Accidents from external causes affect the human population in different ways. This article seeks to analyze emergency care for women who are victims of accidents and violence. Data from the Surveillance System for Violence and Accidents were analyzed. This study was carried out in 74 emergency units of 23 state capitals and the Federal District in 2009 and included 6,965 women aged from 20-59 years. The age groups of 20-39 and 40-59 years were compared for the occurrence of accidents and violence. Accidents were more frequent among young black women (20-39 years) with more than nine years of schooling. The occurrence of violence was also prevalent in young black women but with less schooling. Falls were the most frequent accidents (38.6%), followed by traffic accidents. The occurrence of violence was more frequent in the home (p <0.000) and the mention of alcohol abuse among victims of violence was predominant. The most frequent type of violence was aggression (84.6%), in which the aggressor was male (79.1%) and identified as an intimate partner (44.1%). It is increasingly important that services are able to provide comprehensive and humanized care to the victims of this important public health problem.

Occupational Accidents: A Perspective of Pakistan Construction Industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tauha Hussain Ali

2014-07-01

Full Text Available It has been observed that the construction industry is one of the notorious industry having higher rate of fatalities and injuries. Resulting in higher financial losses and work hour losses, which are normally faced by this industry due to occuptional accidents. Construction industry has the highest occupational accidents rate recorded throughout the world after agriculture industry. The construction work site is often a busy place having an incredibly high account of activities taking place, where everyone is moving in frenzy having particular task assigned. In such an environment, occupational accidents do occur. This paper gives information about different types of occupational accidents & their causes in the construction industry of Pakistan. A survey has been carried out to identify the types of occupational accidents often occur at construction site. The impact of each occupational accident has also been identified. The input from the different stakeholders involved on the work site was analyzed using RIW (Relative Importance Weight method. The findings of this research show that ?fall from elevation, electrocution from building power and snake bite? are the frequent occupational accidents occur within the work site where as ?fall from elevation, struck by, snake bite and electrocution from faulty tool? are the occupational accident with high impact within the construction industry of Pakistan. The results also shows the final ranking of the accidents based on higher frequency and higher impact. Poor Management, Human Element and Poor Site Condition are found as the root causes leading to such occupational accidents. Hence, this paper

OSCAAR calculations for the Iput dose reconstruction scenario of BIOMASS theme 2

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Homma, Toshimitsu; Matsunaga, Takeshi [Department of Reactor Safety Research, Nuclear Safety Research Center, Tokai Research Establishment, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Tokai, Ibaraki (Japan)

2001-01-01

This report presents the results obtained from the application of the accident consequence assessment code, called OSCAAR, developed in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute to the Iput dose reconstruction scenario of BIOMASS Theme 2 organized by International Atomic Energy Agency. The Iput Scenario deals with {sup 137}Cs contamination of the catchment basin and agricultural area in the Bryansk Region of Russia, which was heavily contaminated after the Chernobyl accident. This exercise was used to test the chronic exposure pathway models in OSCAAR with actual measurements and to identify the most important sources of uncertainly with respect to each part of the assessment. The OSCAAR chronic exposure pathway models almost successfully reconstructed the whole 10-year time course of {sup 137}Cs activity concentrations in most requested types of agricultural products and natural foodstuffs. Modeling of {sup 137}Cs downward migration in soils is, however, still incomplete and more detail modeling of the changes of cesium bioavailability with time is needed for long term predictions of the contamination of food. (author)

OSCAAR calculations for the Iput dose reconstruction scenario of BIOMASS theme 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Homma, Toshimitsu; Matsunaga, Takeshi

2001-01-01

This report presents the results obtained from the application of the accident consequence assessment code, called OSCAAR, developed in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute to the Iput dose reconstruction scenario of BIOMASS Theme 2 organized by International Atomic Energy Agency. The Iput Scenario deals with 137 Cs contamination of the catchment basin and agricultural area in the Bryansk Region of Russia, which was heavily contaminated after the Chernobyl accident. This exercise was used to test the chronic exposure pathway models in OSCAAR with actual measurements and to identify the most important sources of uncertainly with respect to each part of the assessment. The OSCAAR chronic exposure pathway models almost successfully reconstructed the whole 10-year time course of 137 Cs activity concentrations in most requested types of agricultural products and natural foodstuffs. Modeling of 137 Cs downward migration in soils is, however, still incomplete and more detail modeling of the changes of cesium bioavailability with time is needed for long term predictions of the contamination of food. (author)

The Importance of Bloodstain Pattern Analysis in the Investigation of Road Traffic Accidents: A Case Report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Younis M. Albalooshi

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Bloodstain pattern analysis has become a field of specialization in Forensic sciences and plays an important role in the reconstruction of events at a crime scene. Research, books, and articles have been published on the analysis and interpretation of bloodstain patterns We present a case study of a road traffic accident in which bloodstain pattern analysis helped us to solve the discrepancy between reports produced by forensic examiners and by the forensic biology department. The case was of a 22-year-old man who died immediately and a 31- year-old woman who survived a road traffic accident. They were both found outside their overturned car and it was impossible to ascertain from initial observations which of the victims was driving the car at the time of the accident. An external examination of the man revealed multiple injuries, and the cause of his death was severe brain injury. The woman survived with a fracture of the forearm, dislocated clavicle bone, and other minor injuries. After initial examination of the car and based on the pattern of injuries the deceased received, forensic examiner concluded that the man was the driving the car at the time of accident. On the other hand, the forensic DNA analysis of bloodstains obtained from the driver's seat matched that of the woman, suggesting that she was the driver. This apparent discrepancy directed the forensic examiner to carry out a bloodstain pattern analysis on the driver's seat. The bloodstain pattern analysis helped resolve the discrepancy and enabled the investigators to identify the driver correctly. This case report emphasizes the importance of bloodstain pattern analysis in the reconstruction of cases involving road traffic accidents.

First Annual Report: NASA-ONERA Collaboration on Human Factors in Aviation Accidents and Incidents

Science.gov (United States)

Srivastava, Ashok; Fabiani, Patrick

2012-01-01

This is the first annual report jointly prepared by NASA and ONERA on the work performed under the agreement to collaborate on a study of the human factors entailed in aviation accidents and incidents particularly focused on consequences of decreases in human performance associated with fatigue. The objective of this Agreement is to generate reliable, automated procedures that improve understanding of the levels and characteristics of flight-crew fatigue factors whose confluence will likely result in unacceptable crew performance. This study entails the analyses of numerical and textual data collected during operational flights. NASA and ONERA are collaborating on the development and assessment of automated capabilities for extracting operationally significant information from very large, diverse (textual and numerical) databases much larger than can be handled practically by human experts. This report presents the approach that is currently expected to be used in processing and analyzing the data for identifying decrements in aircraft performance and examining their relationships to decrements in crewmember performance due to fatigue. The decisions on the approach were based on samples of both the numerical and textual data that will be collected during the four studies planned under the Human Factors Monitoring Program (HFMP). Results of preliminary analyses of these sample data are presented in this report.

Investigation on the health effects and radioactive contamination after the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nagataki, Shigenobu; Yokoyama, Naokata

1996-01-01

In the screening of the thyroid diseases in the radiation cohort, it is essential to make correct diagnosis, to measure radiation dose in every subjects and to analyze the dose response relationship by the most appropriate statistical method. Based on experiences of atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki, children around Chernobyl area were examined. In the Chernobyl accident, various investigations were supported by many international organizations and groups in the world. More than 80,000 children were screened in 5 diagnostic centers; Klincy in Russia, Mogilev and Gomel in Beralus and Kiev and Korosten in Ukraine. Children with thyroid cancer confirmed by histology were 2 in Mogilev. 19 in Gomel, 6 in Kiev, 5 in Korosten and 4 in Klincy until the end of 1994. The prevalence of thyroid cancer was remarkably high (lowest 100 and highest 1,000/million children), compared to the other parts of the world (0.2 to 5/millions/year). However, there was no dose response relationship between the prevalence of thyroid diseases and whole body 137 Cs radioactivity or the soil 137 Cs radio contaminated levels. Although a significant correlation between thyroid cancer and reconstructed thyroid 131 I dose was presented, there are no previous reports to prove that 131 I produces thyroid cancer in human. It is concluded about childhood thyroid cancer around Chernobyl that; it is confirmed that there are many children with thyroid cancer in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and its diagnosis is correct. The increases of the incidence of thyroid cancer after the Chernobyl accident is probable confirmed. It is suspected but no confirmed that cause of thyroid cancer is the radioactive fallout of Chernobyl accident. Investigation on internal radiation and short lived isotopes along with 131 I may be important to elucidate the cause of thyroid cancer. (K.H.)

Unavoidable Accident

OpenAIRE

Grady, Mark F.

2009-01-01

In negligence law, "unavoidable accident" is the risk that remains when an actor has used due care. The counterpart of unavoidable accident is "negligent harm." Negligence law makes parties immune for unavoidable accident even when they have used less than due care. Courts have developed a number of methods by which they "sort" accidents to unavoidable accident or to negligent harm, holding parties liable only for the latter. These sorting techniques are interesting in their own right and als...

Thirty years after the Chernobyl accident: What lessons have we learnt?

Science.gov (United States)

Beresford, N A; Fesenko, S; Konoplev, A; Skuterud, L; Smith, J T; Voigt, G

2016-06-01

April 2016 sees the 30(th) anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. As a consequence of the accident populations were relocated in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and remedial measures were put in place to reduce the entry of contaminants (primarily (134+137)Cs) into the human food chain in a number of countries throughout Europe. Remedial measures are still today in place in a number of countries, and areas of the former Soviet Union remain abandoned. The Chernobyl accident led to a large resurgence in radioecological studies both to aid remediation and to be able to make future predictions on the post-accident situation, but, also in recognition that more knowledge was required to cope with future accidents. In this paper we discuss, what in the authors' opinions, were the advances made in radioecology as a consequence of the Chernobyl accident. The areas we identified as being significantly advanced following Chernobyl were: the importance of semi-natural ecosystems in human dose formation; the characterisation and environmental behaviour of 'hot particles'; the development and application of countermeasures; the "fixation" and long term bioavailability of radiocaesium and; the effects of radiation on plants and animals. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Lessons taught by the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

2002-01-01

On nuclear development, it is natural that safety is the most important condition. However, when occurring an accident in spite of earnest efforts on safety pursuit, it is essential for a technical developer to absorb some lessons from its contents as much as possible and show an attitude to use thereafter. The Chernobyl accident brought extraordinarily large damage in the history of nuclear technology development. Therefore, the edition group of the Japan Society of Atomic Energy introduced opinions of three groups of the Society (that is, groups on reactor physics, nuclear power generation, and human-machine system research) with some description on cause analysis of the accident and its result and effect. And, here was also shown four basic difference on design between RMBK type reactor in Chernobyl and LWR type reactor supplied in Japan. (G.K.)

Addressing severe accidents in the CANDU 9 design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nijhawan, S.M.; Wight, A.L.; Snell, V.G.

1998-01-01

CANDU 9 is a single-unit evolutionary heavy-water reactor based on the Bruce/Darlington plants. Severe accident issues are being systematically addressed in CANDU 9, which includes a number of unique features for prevention and mitigation of severe accidents. A comprehensive severe accident program has been formulated with feedback from potential clients and the Canadian regulatory agency. Preliminary Probabilistic Safety Analyses have identified the sequences and frequency of system and human failures that may potentially lead to initial conditions indicating onset of severe core damage. Severe accident consequence analyses have used these sequences as a guide to assess passive heat sinks for the core, and containment performance. Estimates of the containment response to mass and energy injections typical of postulated severe accidents have been made and the results are presented. We find that inherent CANDU severe accident mitigation features, such as the presence of large water volumes near the fuel (moderator and shield tank), permit a relatively slow severe accident progression under most plant damage states, facilitate debris coolability and allow ample time for the operator to arrest the progression within, progressively, the fuel channels, calandria vessel or shield tank. The large-volume CANDU 9 containment design complements these features because of the long times to reach failure

OSSA. A second generation of severe accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sauvage, E.C.; Musoyan, G.; Ducros, V.D.

2009-01-01

Nowadays the severe accident and their management are an integrated part of the new generation of power plants. The EPR, as the third generation of nuclear plants, includes both systems and instrumentation to mitigate a severe accident, but also a new generation of severe accident management guidelines: the OSSA. Severe accident management guidelines are highly dependent on human means available: emergency organization actors, training and knowledge shall be taken in consideration in an innovative way. Their impacts on ergonomy and content of the document lead to a new generation of guidelines with several innovative features. This second generation of severe accident management guidelines was developed in parallel with the PSA level 2, the human reliability analyses, the validation and verification process, the severe accident simulator progresses. By taking in consideration this variety of input the OSSA were developed in a user aspect orientation. For example in the OSSA a larger responsibility is given to the operational crew to better support the technical support group evaluation. Their existing knowledge of the plant and of the systems and instrumentation is used. This collaboration work implies a strong communication tool that has been developed to enhance the permanent communication within the emergency organization, but although to ensure the main up-to-date information for evaluation will be available where required. The entry condition is based on a strong and stand alone diagnostic for all plant states, that uses in particular a curve of core exit temperature as a function of primary pressure for a fixed core cladding temperature, or its equivalent in term of containment conditions. It ensures relatively consistent core conditions on entry. A first criterion for ultimate final primary depressurization is provided, ensuring all attempts to reflood the core with the available means have been ensured before the OSSA entry condition is reached. This

Occupational accidents: a perspective of pakistan construction industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ali, T.H.; Khahro, S.H.; Memon, F.A.

2014-01-01

It has been observed that the construction industry is one of the notorious industry having higher rate of facilities and injuries. Resulting in higher financial losses and work hour losses, which are normally faced by this industry due to occupational accidents. Construction industry has the highest occupational accidents rate recorded throughout the world after agriculture industry. The construction work site is often a busy place having an incredibly high account of activities taking place, where everyone is moving in frenzy having particular task assigned. In such an environment, occupational accidents do occur. This paper gives information about different types of occupational accidents and their causes in the construction industry of Pakistan. A survey has been carried out to identify the types of occupational accidents often occur at construction site. The impact of each occupational accident has also been identified. The input from the different stakeholders involved on the work site was analyzed using RIW (Relative Importance Weight) method. The findings of this research show that fall from elevation, electrocution from building power and snake bite are the frequent occupational accidents occur within the work site where as fall from elevation, struck by, snake bite and electrocution from faulty tool are the occupational accident with high impact within the construction industry of Pakistan. The results also shows the final ranking of the accidents based on higher frequency and higher impact. Poor Management, Human Element and Poor Site Condition are found as the root causes leading to such occupational accidents. Hence, this paper identify that what type of occupational accidents occur at the work place in construction industry of pakistan, in order to develop the corrective actions which should be adequate enough to prevent the re-occurrence of such accidents at work site. (author)

Problems of probabilistic safety assessment after Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sugiyama, Naoki

2011-01-01

Probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) methodology to assure nuclear safety is had great expectations of lessons learned from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident and on the other hand this accident made actualized technical problems of PSA. Effectiveness of current PSA methodology for risk assessment was confirmed by comparing the accident development with accident scenario of PSA and equipment failure rate. From a viewpoint of nuclear safety objective and defense in depth approach of IAEA, technical problems of PSA were (1) extension of PSA for spent fuel pool and waste disposal system as well as level 3PSA for broader environmental contamination and (2) overlapping of accident scenario of plural unit site, balance of high quality plant management and preceding negation, treatment of uncertainty of external events, severe accident measure and human reliability analysis and reflection of disaster prevention capability to level 3PSA. In order to upgrade PSA technology, six proposals were described for nuclear safety and defense in depth, comprehensive evaluation scope and catch-up of latest technology, necessity of strategic preparation of PSA standard, human resources fostering and risk communication. (T. Tanaka)

Domino effect in chemical accidents: main features and accident sequences

OpenAIRE

Casal Fàbrega, Joaquim; Darbra Roman, Rosa Maria

2010-01-01

The main features of domino accidents in process/storage plants and in the transportation of hazardous materials were studied through an analysis of 225 accidents involving this effect. Data on these accidents, which occurred after 1961, were taken from several sources. Aspects analyzed included the accident scenario, the type of accident, the materials involved, the causes and consequences and the most common accident sequences. The analysis showed that the most frequent causes a...

OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENTS AS INDICATORS OF INADEQUATE WORK CONDITIONS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT

OpenAIRE

Petar Babović

2009-01-01

Occupational accidents due to inadequate working conditions and work environment present a major problem in highly industrialised countries, as well as in developing ones. Occupational accidents are a regular and accompanying phenomenon in all human activities and one of the main health related and economic problems in modern societies.The aim of this study is the analysis of the connections of unfavourable working conditions and working environment on occupational accidents. Occurrence of oc...

A study into the consequences of a nuclear accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arnott, D.G.

1987-07-01

The nuclear industry in Britain would like to believe, and would like the general public to believe, that major accidents such as that at Chernobyl in 1986, could no happen in Britain, because the design and operating procedure have been made as safe as possible. However, because the designers and operators are human, they can make mistakes. Some of these are mentioned; errors of design, errors of maintenance or inspection and errors of judgement. In spite of protestations to the contrary, a major accident could occur at Sizewell-B reactor. Given that this a real possibility, plans should be drawn up to prepare for the situation. The study considers the possible consequences of a nuclear accident under the headings, human error, how nuclear fission works, radioactivity, the truth about Chernobyl, what patterns of reactor accident are possible, what can be done (this includes meteorological information, the issuing of potassium iodate tables, radiation monitoring and evacuation). Practical issues which should concern the local authorities, especially Wrekin Council, are discussed and a recommendation made for an environmental protection officer to be appointed to keep the matter under continuing review. (U.K.)

Stress in accident and post-accident management at Chernobyl

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Girard, P.; Dubreuil, G.H.

1996-01-01

The effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident on the psychology of the affected population have been much discussed. The psychological dimension has been advanced as a factor explaining the emergence, from 1990 onwards, of a post-accident crisis in the main CIS countries affected. This article presents the conclusions of a series of European studies, which focused on the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. These studies show that the psychological and social effects associated with the post-accident situation arise from the interdependency of a number of complex factors exerting a deleterious effect on the population. We shall first attempt to characterise the stress phenomena observed among the population affected by the accident. Secondly, we will be presenting an anlysis of the various factors that have contributed to the emerging psychological and social features of population reaction to the accident and in post-accident phases, while not neglecting the effects of the pre-accident situation on the target population. Thirdly, we shall devote some initial consideration to the conditions that might be conducive to better management of post-accident stress. In conclusion, we shall emphasise the need to restore confidence among the population generally. (Author)

Vulnerability assessment of chemical industry facilities in South Korea based on the chemical accident history

Science.gov (United States)

Heo, S.; Lee, W. K.; Jong-Ryeul, S.; Kim, M. I.

2016-12-01

The use of chemical compounds are keep increasing because of their use in manufacturing industry. Chemical accident is growing as the consequence of the chemical use increment. Devastating damages from chemical accidents are far enough to aware people's cautious about the risk of the chemical accident. In South Korea, Gumi Hydrofluoric acid leaking accident triggered the importance of risk management and emphasized the preventing the accident over the damage reducing process after the accident occurs. Gumi accident encouraged the government data base construction relate to the chemical accident. As the result of this effort Chemical Safety-Clearing-house (CSC) have started to record the chemical accident information and damages according to the Harmful Chemical Substance Control Act (HCSC). CSC provide details information about the chemical accidents from 2002 to present. The detail informations are including title of company, address, business type, accident dates, accident types, accident chemical compounds, human damages inside of the chemical industry facilities, human damage outside of the chemical industry facilities, financial damages inside of the chemical industry facilities, and financial damages outside of the chemical industry facilities, environmental damages and response to the chemical accident. Collected the chemical accident history of South Korea from 2002 to 2015 and provide the spatial information to the each accident records based on their address. With the spatial information, compute the data on ArcGIS for the spatial-temporal analysis. The spatial-temporal information of chemical accident is organized by the chemical accident types, damages, and damages on environment and conduct the spatial proximity with local community and environmental receptors. Find the chemical accident vulnerable area of South Korea from 2002 to 2015 and add the vulnerable area of total period to examine the historically vulnerable area from the chemical accident in

Three Mile Island accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barre, B.; Olivier, E.; Roux, J.P.; Pelle, P.

2010-01-01

Deluded by equivocal instrumentation signals, operators at TMI-2 (Three Mile Island - unit 2) misunderstood what was going on in the reactor and for 2 hours were taking inadequate decisions that turned a reactor incident into a major nuclear event that led to the melting of about one third of the core. The TMI accident had worldwide impacts in the domain of nuclear safety. The main consequences in France were: 1) the introduction of the major accident approach and the reinforcement of crisis management; 2) the improvement of the reactor design, particularly that of the pressurizer valves; 3) the implementation of safety probabilistic studies; 4) a better taking into account of the feedback experience in reactor operations; and 5) a better taking into account of the humane factor in reactor safety. (A.C.)

Researches and Applications of ESR Dosimetry for Radiation Accident Dose Assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, K.; Guo, L.; Cong, J.B.; Sun, C.P.; Hu, J.M.; Zhou, Z.S.; Wang, S.; Zhang, Y.; Zhang, X.; Shi, Y.M.

1998-01-01

The aim of this work was to establish methods suitable for practical dose assessment of people involved in ionising radiation accidents. Some biological materials of the human body and materials possibly carried or worn by people were taken as detection samples. By using electron spin resonance (ESR) techniques, the basic dosimetric properties of selected materials were investigated in the range above the threshold dose of human acute haemopoietic radiation syndrome. The dosimetric properties involved included dose response properties of ESR signals, signal stabilities, distribution of background signals, the lowest detectable dose value, radiation conditions, environmental effects on the detecting process, etc. Several practical dose analytical indexes and detecting methods were set up. Some of them (bone, watch glass and tooth enamel) had also been successfully used in the dose assessment of people involved in three radiation accidents, including the Chernobyl reactor accident. This work further proves the important role of ESR techniques in radiation accident dose estimation. (author)

Environmental aftermath of the radiation accident at Tomsk-7

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Porfiriev, B.N.

1996-01-01

An analysis is presented of the environmental effects of the most serious radiation accident recorded after Chernobyl, which occurred in the formerly secret town of Tomsk-7 in Siberia, Russia, on 6, April 1993. Fortunately, it appears not to have become a major industrial crisis or disaster. The causes of the accident are described. It is argued that a mixture of both objective and subjective prerequisites, including specific human, organizational, and technological factors, were responsible for the explosion or directly facilitated it. The Tomsk-7 accident's ecological, medical, social, and psychological consequences are discussed. 33 refs., 1 figs., 1 tab

Thyroid doses from external gamma-exposure following the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tretyakevich, Sergey; Kukhta, Tatyana; Minenko, Victor; Drozdovitch, Vladimir; Luckyanov, Nickolas; Gavrilin, Yury; Khrouch, Valeri; Shinkarev, Sergey

2008-01-01

Full text: An increase of thyroid cancer incidence among children in Belarus has been observed after the Chernobyl accident. The main contributor to the thyroid dose was caused by 131 I intake with fresh milk in 1986. Other contributions to the thyroid dose (external gamma-exposure, short-lived iodine isotopes, internal radiocesium) were small in comparison to the dose from 131 I intakes soon after the accident. However, exposures to external radiation continued for a number of years after the accident. Thyroid doses from external gamma-exposure following the Chernobyl accident were mainly caused by gamma-exposure to 24 nuclides: 95 Zr, 95 Nb, 99 Mo, 99 mTc, 103 Ru, 103m Rh, 106 Ru, 125 Sb, 125m Te, 131m Te, 131 I, 132 Te, 132 I, 133 I, 135 I, 134 Cs, 136 Cs, 137 Cs, 140 Ba, 140 La, 141 Ce, 144 Ce, 144 Pr, 239 Np. Data of personal interview were used to take into account the personal residence history for the time elapsed from the Chernobyl accident until the interview (10 to 15 years later). Cumulative thyroid doses caused by external gamma-exposure during the passage of the radioactive cloud and from the ground contamination following the Chernobyl accident have been reconstructed. The median thyroid dose from external gamma-exposure to ∼11,770 cohort members of an epidemiological study was estimated to be ∼6 mGy. There are ∼3,400 persons with external dose estimates that exceed 20 mGy. Exposure from radionuclides deposited on the ground was the main source of external dose. The contribution from the passing radioactive cloud to external dose was found to be negligible. (author)

Interrogations to Learn from the Fukushima Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gisquet, E.; Jeffroy, F.

2016-01-01

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake in eastern Japan caused the reactors in operation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) to trip. The emergency generators started and then suddenly failed following the tsunami. The cooling water injection system no longer worked. Suddenly plunged into total darkness, the operators had to manage the accident. Starting from the official reports and testimonies on the Fukushima accident, IRSN has conducted a survey “Human and Organizational Factors Perspective on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident.” Four years after the accident, however, as more witness accounts become available, IRSN feels it useful to return to the human and organizational response to the accident inside the NPP itself. To what extent can the participants act and coordinate their actions when faced with such a dramatic situation? To what degree did their actions contribute to the disaster? Rather than looking at the causes of the accident, this study examines the unfolding of the crisis, particularly in the most urgent early stages, and draws lessons for safety culture from the decisions and actions of key actors. The main results would be presented in three key areas: 1. How to make sense of the situation? People had to make sense of what happened and create new indicators. Since instruments and controls, as well as many communication technologies, were knocked out by the tsunami, all the standard means of determining the status of the reactors were impossible. Although they were under normal circumstances almost completely dependent on these indicators, and although (or because) their lives were most directly at risk, the operators managed this uncertainty through various means that will be successively presented. 2. What are the challenges for the emergency structure? The Emergency Response Center (ERC) operations team was responsible for being in contact with the operators in the control rooms and providing them technical support as needed. The ERC

A study of maintenance-related major accident cases in the 21st century

OpenAIRE

Okoh, Peter; Haugen, Stein

2014-01-01

This paper is based on a review of 183 detailed, major accident investigation and analysis reports related to the handling, processing and storage of hydrocarbons and hazardous chemicals over a decade from 2000 to 2011. The reports cover technical, human and organizational factors. In this paper, the Work and Accident Process (WAP) classification scheme is applied to the accident reports with the intention of investigating to what extent maintenance has been a cause of major accidents and wha...

Emergency planning lessons learned from a review of past major radiological accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stephan, J.G.; Selby, J.M.; Martin, J.B.; Moeller, D.W.; Vallario, E.J.

1988-01-01

In examining a range of nuclear accidents from the 1950s to the present that were reported in the literature, the authors have identified a number of contributing factors which affected human judgement during these events. One common thread found in a large number of accidents is the time of occurrence; a second is the adequacy of emergency training. The data show that events, whether severe accidents or operational incidents, appear to occur more frequently during off-normal hours such as the early morning shift, weekends, or holidays. Accidents seldom occur during the day shift when the full management team and senior operations personnel are present. As a result, those facility employees most expert in coping with the situation may not be available, and the normal chain of command may be disrupted. At several nuclear power plants, it was also observed that new or less experienced technicians are often assigned to night shifts. The lack of experienced human resources and the pressure of an accident situation can have an adverse impact on individuals who are faced with making important decisions

A 3D reconstruction of pancreas development in the human embryos during embryonic period (Carnegie stages 15-23).

Science.gov (United States)

Radi, M; Gaubert, J; Cristol-Gaubert, R; Baecker, V; Travo, P; Prudhomme, M; Godlewski, G; Prat-Pradal, D

2010-01-01

The goal in this paper was to rebuild a three dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the dorsal and ventral pancreatic buds, in the human embryos, at Carnegie stages 15-23. The early development of the pancreas is studied by tissue observation and reconstruction by a computer-assisted method, using a light micrograph images from consecutive serial sagittal sections (diameter 7 microm) of ten human embryos ranging from Carnegie stages 15-23, CRL 7-27 mm, fixed, dehydrated and embedded in paraffin, were stained alternately with haematoxylin-eosin or Heindenhain'Azan. The images were digitalized by Canon Camera 350 EOS D. The serial views were aligned automatically by software, manual alignment was performed, the data were analysed following segmentation and threshold. The two buds were clearly identified at stage 15. In stage 16, both pancreatic buds were in final position, and begin to merge in stage 17. From stage 18 to the stage 23, surrounding connective tissue differentiated. In the stage 23, the morphology of the pancreas was definitive. The superior portion of the anterior face of the pancreas's head was arising from the dorsal bud. The rest of the head including the uncinate process emanated from the ventral bud. The 3D computer-assisted reconstruction of the human pancreas visualized the relationships between the two pancreatic buds. This explains the disposition and the modality of the components fusion. This embryologic development permits a better understanding of congenital abnormalities.

The Fukushima Daiichi Accident. Technical Volume 2/5. Safety Assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2015-08-01

Technical Volume 1 of this report has described what happened during the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP). This volume begins (Section 2.1) with a review of how the design basis of the site for external events was assessed initially and then reassessed over the life of the NPP. The section also describes the physical changes that were made to the units as a result. The remainder of the volume describes the treatment of beyond design basis events in the safety assessment of the site, the accident management provisions, the effectiveness of regulatory programmes, human and organizational factors and the safety culture, and the role of operating experience. Further background information is contained in three annexes included on the CD-ROM of this Technical Volume which describe analytical investigations of the accident along with information on topics such as system performance, defence in depth and severe accident phenomena. Section 2.2 provides an assessment of the systems that failed, resulting in a failure to maintain the fundamental safety functions in Units 1–3, which were in operation at the time of the tsunami and in which the reactor pressure vessels (RPV) and containment vessels failed. The section also describes Units 4-6, which were shut down at the time of the tsunami, and the site’s central spent fuel storage facility. Section 2.3 discusses the probabilistic and deterministic safety assessments of beyond design basis accidents (BDBAs) that had been performed for the plant and the insights from these assessments that had led to changes in the plant’s design. The section pays particular attention to the assessment of extreme natural hazards, such as the one which led to the total loss of AC power supply on the site. The additional loss of DC power supply in Units 1 and 2 played a key role in the progression of the accident because it impeded the diagnosis of plant conditions and made the operators unaware of the status of

Factors Affecting Road Traffic Accident in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Che-Him, Norziha; Roslan, Rozaini; Saifullah Rusiman, Mohd; Khalid, Kamil; Ghazali Kamardan, M.; Azbi Arobi, Farquis; Mohamad, Nazeera

2018-04-01

A road traffic accident resulted from the combination of factors related to the few components of the system involving environment, roads, road users, vehicles and the interaction between those systems. Road traffic accident (RTA) in Malaysia recorded as the highest fatality rate (per 100,000 population) among the ASEAN countries. In 2016, more than half of million cases accident recorded with more than 7,000 people were killed. Therefore, the RTA is one of the most critical issue in Malaysia even become the worldwide burden to authority. Generally, driving is a complex process which involves movement of a vehicle by either a computer or human controller. However, failure to control and coordinate will contribute to an accident. The objective of this study is to identify the pattern of accident in Johor Malaysia and to examine the relationship between the number of accident and the types of vehicles and roads. The results could help the government to recognise the different patterns, types of vehicles and roads that show major factors in the increasing of road traffic accident in Malaysia.

Optically stimulated luminescence of electronic components for forensic, retrospective, and accident dosimetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Inrig, E.L.; Godfrey-Smith, D.I.; Khanna, S.

2008-01-01

This study investigated the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) response of electronic components found within portable electronic devices such as cell phones and pagers, portable computers, music and video players, global positioning system receivers, cameras, and digital watches. The analysis of components extracted from these ubiquitous devices was proposed for applications ranging from rapid accident dose reconstruction to the tracking and attribution of gamma-emitting radiological materials. Surface-mount resistors with alumina porcelain substrates consistently produced OSL following irradiation, with minimum detectable doses on the order of 10 mGy for a typical sample. Since the resistor ceramics were found to exhibit anomalous fading, dose reconstruction procedures were developed to correct for this using laboratory measurements of fading rates carried out over approximately 3 months. Two trials were conducted in which cellular phones were affixed to an anthropomorphic phantom and irradiated using gamma-ray sources; ultimately, analysis of the devices used in these trials succeeded in reconstructing doses in the range of 0.1-0.6Gy

Self-reported accidents

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Møller, Katrine Meltofte; Andersen, Camilla Sloth

2016-01-01

The main idea behind the self-reporting of accidents is to ask people about their traffic accidents and gain knowledge on these accidents without relying on the official records kept by police and/or hospitals.......The main idea behind the self-reporting of accidents is to ask people about their traffic accidents and gain knowledge on these accidents without relying on the official records kept by police and/or hospitals....

Reconstructing recent human phylogenies with forensic STR loci: A statistical approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khan Faisal

2005-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Forensic Short Tandem Repeat (STR loci are effective for the purpose of individual identification, and other forensic applications. Most of these markers have high allelic variability and mutation rate because of which they have limited use in the phylogenetic reconstruction. In the present study, we have carried out a meta-analysis to explore the possibility of using only five STR loci (TPOX, FES, vWA, F13A and Tho1 to carry out phylogenetic assessment based on the allele frequency profile of 20 world population and north Indian Hindus analyzed in the present study. Results Phylogenetic analysis based on two different approaches – genetic distance and maximum likelihood along with statistical bootstrapping procedure involving 1000 replicates was carried out. The ensuing tree topologies and PC plots were further compared with those obtained in earlier phylogenetic investigations. The compiled database of 21 populations got segregated and finely resolved into three basal clusters with very high bootstrap values corresponding to three geo-ethnic groups of African, Orientals, and Caucasians. Conclusion Based on this study we conclude that if appropriate and logistic statistical approaches are followed then even lesser number of forensic STR loci are powerful enough to reconstruct the recent human phylogenies despite of their relatively high mutation rates.

Types and severity of operated supraclavicular brachial plexus injuries caused by traffic accidents.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaiser, Radek; Waldauf, Petr; Haninec, Pavel

2012-07-01

Brachial plexus injuries occur in up to 5% of polytrauma cases involving motorcycle accidents and in approximately 4% of severe winter sports injuries. One of the criteria for a successful operative therapy is the type of lesion. Upper plexus palsy has the best prognosis, whereas lower plexus palsy is surgically untreatable. The aim of this study was to evaluate a group of patients with brachial plexus injury caused by traffic accidents, categorize the injuries according to type of accident, and look for correlations between type of palsy (injury) and specific accidents. A total of 441 brachial plexus reconstruction patients from our department were evaluated retrospectively(1993 to 2011). Sex, age, neurological status, and the type and cause of injury were recorded for each case. Patients with BPI caused by a traffic accident were assessed in detail. Traffic accidents were the cause of brachial plexus injury in most cases (80.7%). The most common type of injury was avulsion of upper root(s) (45.7%) followed by rupture (28.2%), complete avulsion (16.9%) and avulsion of lower root(s) (9.2%). Of the patients, 73.9% had an upper,22.7% had a complete and only 3.4% had a lower brachial plexus palsy. The main cause was motorcycle accidents(63.2%) followed by car accidents (23.5%), bicycle accidents(10.7%) and pedestrian collisions (3.1%) (paccidents had a higher percentage of lower avulsion (22.7%) and a lower percentage of upper avulsion (29.3%), whereas cyclists had a higher percentage of upper avulsion (68.6%) based on the data from the entire group of patients (paccidents (9.3%,paccidents),significantly more upper and fewer lower palsies were present. In the bicycle accident group, upper palsy was the most common (89%). Study results indicate that the most common injury was an upper plexus palsy. It was characteristic of bicycle accidents, and significantly more common in car and motorcycle accidents. The results also indicate that it is important to consider the

ROAD TRANSPORT ACCIDENTS IN NIGERIA AND THE ROLE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olasunkanmi Oriola AKINYEMI

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Analysis of road traffic accidents revealed that most accidents are as a result of drivers’ errors. Over the years, active safety systems (ASS were devised in vehicle to reduce the high level of road accidents, caused by human errors, leading to death and injuries.This study however evaluated the impacts of ASS inclusions into vehicles in Nigeria road transportation network. The objectives was to measure how ASS contributed to making driving safer and enhanced transport safety. Road accident data were collected, for a period of eleven years, from Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Central Office of Statistics. Quantitative analysis of the retrospective accident was conducted by computing the proportion of yearly number of vehicles involved in road accident to the total number of vehicles for each year. Results of the analysis showed that the proportion of vehicles involved in road accidents decreased from 16 in 1996 to 0.89 in 2006, the injured persons reduced from 15.58 in 1998 to 0.3 in 2006 and the death rate diminished from 4.45 in 1998 to 0.1 in 2006. These represented 94.4%, 95% and 95% improvement respectively on road traffic safety. It can therefore be concluded that the inclusions of ASS into design of modern vehicles had improved road safety in Nigeria automotive industry.

Dosimetry problems when evaluating radiation effects on the personnel, restoration work participants, and human population due to the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abramov, Yu.V.; Osanov, D.P.; Gimadova, T.I.; Gus'kov, V.M.; Kruchkov, V.P.; Pavlov, D.A.; Shaks, A.I.

1993-01-01

System of radiation monitoring operations of the Chernobyl NPP personnel is described for the period from the date of accident up to present time as well as of persons worked in the Chernobyl NPP 30 km zone, servicemen, and human population. Unsatisfactory organization of radiation on monitoring is marked and causes of this fact are considered. 8 refs.; 3 figs

Integration of multi-modality imaging for accurate 3D reconstruction of human coronary arteries in vivo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giannoglou, George D.; Chatzizisis, Yiannis S.; Sianos, George; Tsikaderis, Dimitrios; Matakos, Antonis; Koutkias, Vassilios; Diamantopoulos, Panagiotis; Maglaveras, Nicos; Parcharidis, George E.; Louridas, George E.

2006-01-01

In conventional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-based three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of human coronary arteries, IVUS images are arranged linearly generating a straight vessel volume. However, with this approach real vessel curvature is neglected. To overcome this limitation an imaging method was developed based on integration of IVUS and biplane coronary angiography (BCA). In 17 coronary arteries from nine patients, IVUS and BCA were performed. From each angiographic projection, a single end-diastolic frame was selected and in each frame the IVUS catheter was interactively detected for the extraction of 3D catheter path. Ultrasound data was obtained with a sheath-based catheter and recorded on S-VHS videotape. S-VHS data was digitized and lumen and media-adventitia contours were semi-automatically detected in end-diastolic IVUS images. Each pair of contours was aligned perpendicularly to the catheter path and rotated in space by implementing an algorithm based on Frenet-Serret rules. Lumen and media-adventitia contours were interpolated through generation of intermediate contours creating a real 3D lumen and vessel volume, respectively. The absolute orientation of the reconstructed lumen was determined by back-projecting it onto both angiographic planes and comparing the projected lumen with the actual angiographic lumen. In conclusion, our method is capable of performing rapid and accurate 3D reconstruction of human coronary arteries in vivo. This technique can be utilized for reliable plaque morphometric, geometrical and hemodynamic analyses

Human errors and mistakes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wahlstroem, B.

1993-01-01

Human errors have a major contribution to the risks for industrial accidents. Accidents have provided important lesson making it possible to build safer systems. In avoiding human errors it is necessary to adapt the systems to their operators. The complexity of modern industrial systems is however increasing the danger of system accidents. Models of the human operator have been proposed, but the models are not able to give accurate predictions of human performance. Human errors can never be eliminated, but their frequency can be decreased by systematic efforts. The paper gives a brief summary of research in human error and it concludes with suggestions for further work. (orig.)

Promoting women's human rights: A qualitative analysis of midwives' perceptions about virginity control and hymen 'reconstruction'.

Science.gov (United States)

Christianson, Monica; Eriksson, Carola

2015-06-01

To explore midwives' perceptions regarding virginity control and hymen 'reconstructions', and how these practices can be debated from a gender perspective. An international group of 266 midwives answered an open-ended question in a Web survey. The great majority came from the Western world, among them, the majority were from Europe. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Three themes emerged: misogynistic practices that cement the gender order, which revealed how the respondents viewed virginity control and hymen 'reconstructions'; raising public awareness and combatting practices that demean women, which were suggested as strategies by which to combat these practices; and promoting agency in women and providing culturally sensitive care, which were considered to improve health care encounters. Virginity control and hymen 'reconstructions' are elements of patriarchy, whereby violence and control are employed to subordinate women. To counter these practices, macro and micro-level activities are needed to expand women's human rights in the private and the public spheres. Political activism, international debates, collaboration between sectors such as health care and law-makers may lead to increased gender equality. A women-centred approach whereby women are empowered with agency will make women more capable of combatting virginity control and hymen 'reconstruction'.

Program for rapid dose assessment in criticality accident, RADAPAS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takahashi, Fumiaki

2006-09-01

In a criticality accident, a person near fissile material can receive extremely high dose which can cause acute health effect. For such a case, medical treatment should be carried out for the exposed person, according to severity of the exposure. Then, radiation dose should be rapidly assessed soon after an outbreak of an accident. Dose assessment based upon the quantity of induced 24 Na in human body through neutron exposure is expected as one of useful dosimetry techniques in a criticality accident. A dose assessment program, called RADAPAS (RApid Dose Assessment Program from Activated Sodium in Criticality Accidents), was therefore developed to assess rapidly radiation dose to exposed persons from activity of induced 24 Na. RADAPAS consists of two parts; one is a database part and the other is a part for execution of dose calculation. The database contains data compendiums of energy spectra and dose conversion coefficients from specific activity of 24 Na induced in human body, which had been derived in a previous analysis using Monte Carlo calculation code. Information for criticality configuration or characteristics of radiation in the accident field is to be interactively given with interface displays in the dose calculation. RADAPAS can rapidly derive radiation dose to the exposed person from the given information and measured 24 Na specific activity by using the conversion coefficient in database. This report describes data for dose conversions and dose calculation in RADAPAS and explains how to use the program. (author)

Development of posture-specific computational phantoms using motion capture technology and application to radiation dose-reconstruction for the 1999 Tokai-Mura nuclear criticality accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vazquez, Justin A; Caracappa, Peter F; Xu, X George

2014-01-01

The majority of existing computational phantoms are designed to represent workers in typical standing anatomical postures with fixed arm and leg positions. However, workers found in accident-related scenarios often assume varied postures. This paper describes the development and application of two phantoms with adjusted postures specified by data acquired from a motion capture system to simulate unique human postures found in a 1999 criticality accident that took place at a JCO facility in Tokai-Mura, Japan. In the course of this accident, two workers were fatally exposed to extremely high levels of radiation. Implementation of the emergent techniques discussed produced more accurate and more detailed dose estimates for the two workers than were reported in previous studies. A total-body dose of 6.43 and 26.38 Gy was estimated for the two workers, who assumed a crouching and a standing posture, respectively. Additionally, organ-specific dose estimates were determined, including a 7.93 Gy dose to the thyroid and 6.11 Gy dose to the stomach for the crouching worker and a 41.71 Gy dose to the liver and a 37.26 Gy dose to the stomach for the standing worker. Implications for the medical prognosis of the workers are discussed, and the results of this study were found to correlate better with the patient outcome than previous estimates, suggesting potential future applications of such methods for improved epidemiological studies involving next-generation computational phantom tools. (paper)

Major Accidents (Gray Swans) Likelihood Modeling Using Accident Precursors and Approximate Reasoning.

Science.gov (United States)

Khakzad, Nima; Khan, Faisal; Amyotte, Paul

2015-07-01

Compared to the remarkable progress in risk analysis of normal accidents, the risk analysis of major accidents has not been so well-established, partly due to the complexity of such accidents and partly due to low probabilities involved. The issue of low probabilities normally arises from the scarcity of major accidents' relevant data since such accidents are few and far between. In this work, knowing that major accidents are frequently preceded by accident precursors, a novel precursor-based methodology has been developed for likelihood modeling of major accidents in critical infrastructures based on a unique combination of accident precursor data, information theory, and approximate reasoning. For this purpose, we have introduced an innovative application of information analysis to identify the most informative near accident of a major accident. The observed data of the near accident were then used to establish predictive scenarios to foresee the occurrence of the major accident. We verified the methodology using offshore blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico, and then demonstrated its application to dam breaches in the United Sates. © 2015 Society for Risk Analysis.

A method for rapid estimation of internal dose to members of the public from inhalation of mixed fission products (based on the ICRP 1994 human respiratory tract model for radiological protection)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hou Jieli

1999-01-01

Based on the computing principle given in ICRP-30, a method had been given by the author for fast estimating internal dose from an intake of mixed fission products after nuclear accident. Following the ICRP-66 Human respiratory tract model published in 1994, the method was reconstructed. The doses of 1 Bq intake of mixed fission products (its AMAD = 1 μm, decay rate coefficient n = 0.2∼2.0) during the period of 1∼15 d after an accident were calculated. It is lower slightly based on ICRP 1994 respiratory tract model than that based on ICRP-30 model

Domino effect in chemical accidents: main features and accident sequences.

Science.gov (United States)

Darbra, R M; Palacios, Adriana; Casal, Joaquim

2010-11-15

The main features of domino accidents in process/storage plants and in the transportation of hazardous materials were studied through an analysis of 225 accidents involving this effect. Data on these accidents, which occurred after 1961, were taken from several sources. Aspects analyzed included the accident scenario, the type of accident, the materials involved, the causes and consequences and the most common accident sequences. The analysis showed that the most frequent causes are external events (31%) and mechanical failure (29%). Storage areas (35%) and process plants (28%) are by far the most common settings for domino accidents. Eighty-nine per cent of the accidents involved flammable materials, the most frequent of which was LPG. The domino effect sequences were analyzed using relative probability event trees. The most frequent sequences were explosion→fire (27.6%), fire→explosion (27.5%) and fire→fire (17.8%). Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Accident information needs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hanson, D.J.; Arcieri, W.C.; Ward, L.W.

1992-01-01

A Five-step methodology has been developed to evaluate information needs for nuclear power plants under accident conditions and the availability of plant instrumentation during severe accidents. Step 1 examines the credible accidents and their relationships to plant safety functions. Step 2 determines the information personnel involved in accident management will need to understand plant behavior. Step 3 determines the capability of the instrumentation to function properly under severe accident conditions. Step 4 determines the conditions expected during the identified severe accidents. Step 5 compares the instrument capabilities and the severe accident conditions to evaluate the availability of the instrumentation to supply needed plant information

Accident information needs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hanson, D.J.; Arcieri, W.C.; Ward, L.W.

1992-12-31

A Five-step methodology has been developed to evaluate information needs for nuclear power plants under accident conditions and the availability of plant instrumentation during severe accidents. Step 1 examines the credible accidents and their relationships to plant safety functions. Step 2 determines the information personnel involved in accident management will need to understand plant behavior. Step 3 determines the capability of the instrumentation to function properly under severe accident conditions. Step 4 determines the conditions expected during the identified severe accidents. Step 5 compares the instrument capabilities and the severe accident conditions to evaluate the availability of the instrumentation to supply needed plant information.

Accident information needs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hanson, D.J.; Arcieri, W.C.; Ward, L.W.

1992-01-01

A Five-step methodology has been developed to evaluate information needs for nuclear power plants under accident conditions and the availability of plant instrumentation during severe accidents. Step 1 examines the credible accidents and their relationships to plant safety functions. Step 2 determines the information personnel involved in accident management will need to understand plant behavior. Step 3 determines the capability of the instrumentation to function properly under severe accident conditions. Step 4 determines the conditions expected during the identified severe accidents. Step 5 compares the instrument capabilities and the severe accident conditions to evaluate the availability of the instrumentation to supply needed plant information.

Consequences of nuclear accidents for human beings and the environment; Auswirkungen nuklearer Unfaelle auf den Menschen und die Umwelt

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huebner, Felix; Jung, Jennifer Jana; Schultmann, Frank

2017-03-15

In the 1950s and 1960s many countries believed that they could become energy self-efficient with the help of nuclear power plants. For this reason, nuclear energy experienced internationally an enormous upswing during these years. In the following decades, many nuclear power plants were planned and built. Despite a few critics, who drew attention to the dangers of nuclear power use, an end to the upturn was not foreseeable. But in 1979, the nuclear accident in Three Mile Island in Harrisburg (USA) caused international attention and the critics of the nuclear power became stronger. However, many Europeans only were aware of the danger by nuclear power plants when in 1986 the nuclear disaster occurred in the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. The effects of this nuclear disaster were also felt in Central Europe. Recently, the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has prompted a nuclear phase-out in Germany and the rest of the world. This work focuses not on the political implications of these nuclear accidents, but rather on the impacts of nuclear accidents on human beings, animals and the environment. In particular, reports on the incidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima as well as studies on their effects are analysed and summarised.

A facial reconstruction and identification technique for seriously devastating head wounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Joukal, Marek; Frišhons, Jan

2015-07-01

Many authors have focused on facial identification techniques, and facial reconstructions for cases when skulls have been found are especially well known. However, a standardized facial identification technique for an unknown body with seriously devastating head injuries has not yet been developed. A reconstruction and identification technique was used in 7 cases of accidents involving trains striking pedestrians. This identification technique is based on the removal of skull bone fragments, subsequent fixation of soft tissue onto a universal commercial polystyrene head model, precise suture of dermatomuscular flaps, and definitive adjustment using cosmetic treatments. After reconstruction, identifying marks such as scars, eyebrows, facial lines, facial hair and partly hairstyle become evident. It is then possible to present a modified picture of the reconstructed face to relatives. After comparing the results with photos of the person before death, this technique has proven to be very useful for identifying unknown bodies when other identification techniques are not available. This technique is useful for its being rather quick and especially for its results. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Occupational physician's role in the prevention of the accidents in construction industry].

Science.gov (United States)

Mosconi, G; Riva, M M; Apostoli, P

2008-01-01

The aim of this work is to discuss about the role of the occupational physician in the prevention of the accidents in construction industry. Using the experience of 12 years of surveillance of workers in Bergamo province, the authors analyse the "human factors" which may influence the risk to have an accident, and the role of the physicians not only for the early diagnosis of work-related diseases, but also for the formulation of correct fitness to work, which consider accidents' prevention. Health conditions, psychological elements, fatigue and life style are some of the most important "human factors" which can amplify the accident phenomenon in construction industry. Our experience demonstrates that the occupational physicians can operate in preventive way on these factors, formulating correct fitness to work, giving their collaboration in the risk evaluation and management, suggesting runs of rehabilitation and recovery for the workers who need it, promoting information meetings related to the correct life habits.

Validation of a mathematical phantom for dose assessment of radiological accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gomes, Joana D' Arc R.L.; Gomes, Rogerio S.; Costa, Mara Lucia L.

2013-01-01

Sealed radioactive sources are widely used in the industry with the purpose of well logging, non-destructive testing, food irradiation, process control systems, elemental analysis and others. Among the most used sources, it can mention: 137 Cs, 60 Co, 192 Ir, 85 Kr and Americium-Beryllium with radiation activities ranging between a few MegaBecquerels (MBq) to million of GBq, as the case of food irradiation. In general, these sources present sufficient activity to represent a significant health hazard when inadequately shielded or not handled according to proper safety procedures, producing radiation exposures to workers and to members of public. In cases of overexposure to ionizing radiation, an estimative of the dose received by victims of radiation accidents, as well as its distribution within the organism, can be provided by use an anthropomorphic phantom associates with a theoretical simulation Monte Carlo method to simulate the radioactive source and its interactions with the phantom. In this work is presented the validation results of application of a mathematical phantom modeled in Geant4, as a tool to reconstruct dose of radiological accidents due to external exposure. The results are compared with the dosimetry of real accidents. (author)

Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bar'yakhtar, V.G.

1995-01-01

The monograph contains the catastrophe's events chronology, the efficiency assessed of those measures assumed for their localization as well as their environmental and socio-economic impact. Among materials of the monograph the results are presented of research on the radioactive contamination field forming as well as those concerning the investigation of biogeochemical properties of Chernobyl radionuclides and their migration process in the environment of the Ukraine. The data dealing with biological effects of the continued combined internal and external radioactive influence on plants, animals and human health under the circumstances of Chernobyl accident are of the special interest. In order to provide the scientific generalizing information on the medical aspects of Chernobyl catastrophe, the great part of the monograph is allotted to appraise those factors affecting the health of different population groups as well as to depict clinic aspects of Chernobyl events and medico-sanitarian help system. The National Programme of Ukraine for the accident consequences elimination and population social protection assuring for the years 1986-1993 and this Programme concept for the period up to the year 2000 with a special regard of the world community participation there

Reconstruction of the size of nuclear fuel particle aerosol by the investigation of a radionuclide behaviour in body of the Chernobyl accident witnesses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kutkov, V.A.

1996-01-01

As a result of the Chernobyl NPP (ChNPP) accident aerosol particles of dispersed nuclear fuel were released to the atmosphere. Inhalation of those aerosol became the source of internal exposure for witnesses of the Chernobyl accident. To assess correctly internal doses from a mixture of radionuclides present in air in the form of aerosol particles one mast assign each radionuclide to a certain inhalation class by its chemical speciation in aerosol and define the airborne characteristics (the activity median aerodynamic diameter, AMAD and the standard geometric deviation, fig) of that particular aerosol. Moreover, information on any particular radionuclide is useless for other components since, in such a mixture, the radionuclides are generally independent and may belong to different particles. On the contrary, all nuclear fuel particle (NFP) radionuclides belong to the same particle, being matrix-bound. The collective behaviour of the matrix-bound radionuclides in the environment and in the human barrier organs makes it possible to spread to the aerosol of NFP any estimates of AMAD and β g obtained for any particular NFP radionuclide. This is principal feature of NFP aerosol as distinguished from a mere mixture of aerosol particles carry different radionuclides. (author)

The radiological accident in Tammiku

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-01-01

course of the accident, the remedial actions taken, and the lessons learnt from the sequence of events. It does not include discussions on theoretical aspects of the use and appropriateness of different methods for dose reconstruction

A New Approach to Energy Calculation of Road Accidents against Fixed Small Section Elements Based on Close-Range Photogrammetry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alejandro Morales

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a new approach for energetic analyses of traffic accidents against fixed road elements using close-range photogrammetry. The main contributions of the developed approach are related to the quality of the 3D photogrammetric models, which enable objective and accurate energetic analyses through the in-house tool CRASHMAP. As a result, security forces can reconstruct the accident in a simple and comprehensive way without requiring spreadsheets or external tools, and thus avoid the subjectivity and imprecisions of the traditional protocol. The tool has already been validated, and is being used by the Local Police of Salamanca (Salamanca, Spain for the resolution of numerous accidents. In this paper, a real accident of a car against a fixed metallic pole is analysed, and significant discrepancies are obtained between the new approach and the traditional protocol of data acquisition regarding collision speed and absorbed energy.

Reconstruction of Facial Defect Using Deltopectoral Flap.

Science.gov (United States)

Aldelaimi, Tahrir N; Khalil, Afrah A

2015-11-01

Reconstruction of the head and neck is a challenge for otolarygology surgeons, maxillofacial surgeons as well as plastic surgeons. Defects caused by the resection and/or trauma should be closed with flaps which match in color, texture and hair bearing characteristics with the face. Deltopectoral flap is a one such flap from chest and neck skin mainly used to cover the facial defects. This study report a patient presenting with tragic Road Traffic Accident (RTA) admitted to maxillofacial surgery department at Ramadi Teaching Hospital, Anbar province, Iraq. An incision, medially based, was done and deltopectoral fascio-cutaneous flap was used for surgical exposure and closure of defects after RTA. There was no major complication. Good aesthetic and functional results were achieved. Deltopectoral flap is an excellent alternative for the reconstruction of head and neck. Harvesting and application of the flap is rapid and safe. Only a single incision is sufficient for dissection and flap elevation.

About the causes and circumstances of the Chernobyl NPP accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shteynberg, N.

1992-01-01

The Chernobyl accident is the product of unsatisfactory solutions to scientific-technical, socio-economic and human problems. The documentarily recorded power excursion of the reactor and its rise velocity as well as the quick pressure rise in the separator drum admit the conclusion that the cause of the accident was the rapid power excursion of the reactor and not some external influence. (DG) [de

Risk Analysis of Fukushima Accident using MACCS2

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Seunghee; Kim, Juyoul; Kim, Sukhoon; Kim, Juyub [FNC Technology Co. Ltd., Yongin (Korea, Republic of)

2014-05-15

It has been three years since Fukushima Daiichi accident had occurred. Many efforts have been done for a restoration, however, radioactive materials are still released resulting in a crucial additional damage to a human health and economics and the scale of damage is not much evaluated. Therefore, an estimation of damage degree caused by the released radioactive materials right after a nuclear accident is essential to cope with additional radioactive problems. Here, we report the risk analysis of Fukushima Dai-ichi accident using MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System 2 (MACCS2), which is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) code for evaluating off-site consequences. It is used in level-3 Probabilistic Risk Analyses (PRA), for planning purposes, for cost-benefit analyses and so on. The purpose of this study is to estimate radiological doses and health risks of Fukushima Daiichi accident through short- and long-term of lifetime using MACCS2. In summary, the health risk for inhabitants near Fukushima Daiichi NPP has been evaluated by considering the long term radiation effect using MACCS2 code. The result indicates that the occurrence and death rate of the cancer have been increased by the radioactive materials released from Fukushima Daiichi accident. The result obtained in this study may provide new insights for taking action after the nuclear reactor accident to mitigate the released radioactive materials and to prepare the countermeasure.

Populations protection and territories management in nuclear emergency and post-accident situation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bourrel, M.; Calmon, Ph.; Calvez, M.; Chambrette, V.; Champion, D.; Devin, P.; Godino, O.; Lombard, J.; Rzepka, J.P.; Schneider, Th.; Verhaeghe, B.; Cogez, E.; Kayser, O.; Guenon, C.; Jourdain, J.R.; Bouchot, E.; Murith, Ch.; Lochard, J.; Cluchier, A.; Vandecasteele, Ch.; Pectorin, X.; Dubiau, Ph.; Gerphagnon, O.; Roche, H.; Cessac, B.; Cochard, A.; Machenaud, G.; Jourdain, J.R.; Pirard, Ph.; Leger, M.; Bouchot, E.; Demet, M.; Charre, J.P.; Poumadere, M.; Cogez, E.

2010-01-01

for the management of post-accident consequences: agricultural activities and exit of the emergency stage (B. Cessac); 18 - presentation of the operational means of the GIE Groupe Intra (A. Cochard); 19 - synthetical presentation of the studies of post-accident management conditions in the milk industry (G. Machenaud); 20 - reconstruction of doses received by exposed populations (J.R. Jourdain); 21 - organisation of the health monitoring of populations after a radiological accident - presentation taken from the recommendations of the Codirpa's working group 'health stakes' (P. Pirard); 22 - losses indemnification in case of nuclear accident (M. Leger); 23 - post nuclear accident communication - reflections of the Codirpa's working group 'communication' (E. Bouchot); 24 - the ANCCLI's permanent group 'territories - post-accident' (M. Demet); 25 - experience feedback from the local information commission (CLI) 'Marcoule-Gard' in the management of a post-accident situation (J.P. Charre); 26 - commitment of intervening parties in the preparation to accident and post-accident situations: European experiences (T. Schneider); 27 - socio-cognitive exposure and risk assessment - the radio waves case (M. Poumadere). (J.S.)

Belorussian population health state following the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-01-01

Environmental radioactivity peculiarities at the Belarussian territory resulted from the Chernobyl accident are analysed. Main risk systems for human health and trends of potential pathology formation are determined. Growth in the disease incidence in adults and especially in children is marked. It covers thyroid cancer (due to 131 I intake in the early period of the accident), chronic neoplasms in hematopoietic and lymphatic systems, immune system, digestive system, cardiovascular and neuromental diseases. Attention is paid to the genetic radiation effects, pregnancy and delivery pathology. 2 tabs

Accidents in nuclear facilities: classification, incidence and impact

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Galicia A, J.; Paredes G, L. C.

2012-10-01

A general analysis of the 146 accidents reported officially in nuclear facilities from 1945 to 2012 is presented, among them some took place in: power or research nuclear reactors, critical and subcritical nuclear assemblies, handling of nuclear materials inside laboratories belonging to institutes or universities, in radiochemistry industrial plants and nuclear fuel factories. In form graph the incidence of these accidents is illustrated classified for; category, decades, geographical localization, country classification before the OECD, failure type, and the immediate or later victims. On the other hand, the main learned lessons of the nuclear accidents of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are stood out, among those that highlight; the human factors, the necessity of designs more innovative and major technology for the operation, control and surveillance of the nuclear facilities, to increase the criterions of nuclear, radiological and physics safety applied to these facilities, the necessity to carry out probabilistic analysis of safety more detailed for cases of not very probable accidents and their impact, to revalue the selection criterions of the sites for nuclear locations, the methodology of post-accident sites recovery and major instrumentation for parameters evaluation and the radiological monitoring among others. (Author)

The yellow cake accident at the Ezeiza Airport

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rodriguez, C.E.; Puntarulo, L.J.; Canibano, J.A.

1989-01-01

In January 1987 several drums containing yellow cake fell from about six meters during the loading operation of a Boeing 747 T-100 cargo aircraft. As a result of the accident, about 50% of the 38 drums involved lost their lids and a fraction of the radioactive content was released on an area of about 200 meters squared. Small amounts of yellow cake were dispersed down wind until about 100 meters from the accident place. The shipment was prepared for transport in standard 200 liter steel drums fulfilling the applicable Transport Regulations and the accident was the consequence of an erroneous operation during the cargo associated with a mechanical failure of the cargo lift. In order to avoid human contamination, immediate action was taken by the airport emergency team and in the meantime, the specialized groups of the National Atomic Energy Commission and the Federal Fire Brigades, were convened to take care of the decontamination and radiological evaluation problems. This paper describes the accidental sequences, the accident scenery, the countermeasures taken, the recovery and decontamination actions, and finally, as a conclusion, a brief description of the toxic and radiological aspects of the accident's mode

Effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident on goshawk reproduction

Science.gov (United States)

Murase, Kaori; Murase, Joe; Horie, Reiko; Endo, Koichi

2015-01-01

Although the influence of nuclear accidents on the reproduction of top predators has not been investigated, it is important that we identify the effects of such accidents because humans are also top predators. We conducted field observation for 22 years and analysed the reproductive performance of the goshawk (Accipiter gentilis fujiyamae), a top avian predator in the North Kanto area of Japan, before and after the accidents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that occurred in 2011. The reproductive performance declined markedly compared with the pre-accident years and progressively decreased for the three post-accident study years. Moreover, it was suggested that these declines were primarily caused by an increase in the air dose rate of radio-active contaminants measured under the nests caused by the nuclear accidents, rather than by other factors. We consider the trends in the changes of the reproductive success rates and suggest that internal exposure may play an important role in the reproductive performance of the goshawk, as well as external exposure. PMID:25802117

Severe accidents at nuclear power plants. Their risk assessment and accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abe, Kiyoharu.

1995-05-01

This document is to explain the severe accident issues. Severe Accidents are defined as accidents which are far beyond the design basis and result in severe damage of the core. Accidents at Three Mild Island in USA and at Chernobyl in former Soviet Union are examples of severe accidents. The causes and progressions of the accidents as well as the actions taken are described. Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) is a method to estimate the risk of severe accidents at nuclear reactors. The methodology for PSA is briefly described and current status on its application to safety related issues is introduced. The acceptability of the risks which inherently accompany every technology is then discussed. Finally, provision of accident management in Japan is introduced, including the description of accident management measures proposed for BWRs and PWRs. (author)

Identification of Risk Factors Influencing Road Traffic Accidents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Touahmia

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Road traffic accidents (RTAs are becoming a major problem around the world, incurring enormous losses of human and economic resources. Recent reports from the World Health Organization (WHO reveal that each year more than 1.25 million people are killed and 50 million are injured in road traffic accidents worldwide. In Saudi Arabia, statistics show that at least one traffic accident occurs every minute, causing up to 7,000 deaths and over 39,000 injuries annually. In this study, the main causes of RATs in the province of Hail are examined. The data was collected through the use of a survey which was developed to evaluate the effect of influencing parameters on RTA rate. The results show that 67% of RTAs result from human factors, 29% from road conditions and 4% from vehicle defects. Excessive speed and violation of traffic rules and regulations were found to be the main causes of RATs. Low rates of compliance with speed limit signs and seat-belt regulations were also observed. These findings highlight the need of strengthening effective traffic law enforcement alongside with improving traffic safety and raising public awareness.

Profiling technological failure and disaster in the energy sector: A comparative analysis of historical energy accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sovacool, Benjamin K.; Kryman, Matthew; Laine, Emily

2015-01-01

This study assesses the risk of energy accidents using an original historical dataset over the period 1874-2014, and it evaluates that risk across 11 energy systems: biofuels, biomass, coal, geothermal, hydroelectricity, hydrogen, natural gas, nuclear power, oil, solar energy, and wind energy. Our study shows how these energy systems collectively involved almost 1,100 accidents resulting in more than 210,000 human fatalities and almost $350 billion in property damages. Across the entire sample, the mean amount of property damage was $319 million and 196 fatalities per accident, though when reflected as a median the numbers substantially improve to $3 million in damages per accident and 0 fatalities. We found that wind energy is the most frequent to incur an accident within our sample, accounting for almost one third of accidents. Accidents at hydroelectric dams were the most fatal, accounting for 85 percent of fatalities. Nuclear power accidents are by far the most expensive, accounting for 70 percent of damages. We then utilize this data to test six hypotheses, drawn from the energy studies literature, related to energy systems, energy policy and regulation, and technological learning. - Highlights: • 1085 energy accidents have resulted in 211,529 human fatalities and $344.4 billion in property damages. • Wind energy is the most frequent to incur an accident. • Hydroelectric dam accidents tend to be the most fatal. • Nuclear energy accidents tend to be the most expensive. • Coal, natural gas, and oil are the least likely to incur an accident, when normalized to energy output.

A comparison of scaffold-free and scaffold-based reconstructed human skin models as alternatives to animal use.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinikoglu, Beste

2017-12-01

Tissue engineered full-thickness human skin substitutes have various applications in the clinic and in the laboratory, such as in the treatment of burns or deep skin defects, and as reconstructed human skin models in the safety testing of drugs and cosmetics and in the fundamental study of skin biology and pathology. So far, different approaches have been proposed for the generation of reconstructed skin, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Here, the classic tissue engineering approach, based on cell-seeded polymeric scaffolds, is compared with the less-studied cell self-assembly approach, where the cells are coaxed to synthesise their own extracellular matrix (ECM). The resulting full-thickness human skin substitutes were analysed by means of histological and immunohistochemical analyses. It was found that both the scaffold-free and the scaffold-based skin equivalents successfully mimicked the functionality and morphology of native skin, with complete epidermal differentiation (as determined by the expression of filaggrin), the presence of a continuous basement membrane expressing collagen VII, and new ECM deposition by dermal fibroblasts. On the other hand, the scaffold-free model had a thicker epidermis and a significantly higher number of Ki67-positive proliferative cells, indicating a higher capacity for self-renewal, as compared to the scaffold-based model. 2017 FRAME.

Human eyeball model reconstruction and quantitative analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Xing, Qi; Wei, Qi

2014-01-01

Determining shape of the eyeball is important to diagnose eyeball disease like myopia. In this paper, we present an automatic approach to precisely reconstruct three dimensional geometric shape of eyeball from MR Images. The model development pipeline involved image segmentation, registration, B-Spline surface fitting and subdivision surface fitting, neither of which required manual interaction. From the high resolution resultant models, geometric characteristics of the eyeball can be accurately quantified and analyzed. In addition to the eight metrics commonly used by existing studies, we proposed two novel metrics, Gaussian Curvature Analysis and Sphere Distance Deviation, to quantify the cornea shape and the whole eyeball surface respectively. The experiment results showed that the reconstructed eyeball models accurately represent the complex morphology of the eye. The ten metrics parameterize the eyeball among different subjects, which can potentially be used for eye disease diagnosis.

Treatment of whole-body radiation accident victims

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Drum, D.E.; Rappeport, J.M.

1990-01-01

This paper discusses how whole-body radiation exposure incidents present a number of unique challenges. The acute, nonstochastic effects of high doses of radiation over 25 rads (0.25 Gy) delivered to humans is generally manifest in rather categorical fashion; depending on the dose, either the patient is largely unharmed functionally or he is seriously injured. Radiation initiates microchemical changes within a nanosecond time frame; there exists no specific therapy to stop or reverse the sequence of events that follow. Thus, the range for effective therapeutic intervention is rather small, between 150 to 1500 rad (1.5 to 15 Gy) for humans. Nevertheless, it is likely that a large uncomplicated exposure to as much as 750 rad (7.5 Gy) might be survivable without dramatic measures such as bone marrow transplantation. Review of the available information about past accidents shows that the majority of radiation accidents are mixed injuries

Artificial intelligence applications in accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cain, D.G.

1989-01-01

For nuclear power plant accident management, there are some addition concerns: linking AI systems to live data streams must be mastered; techniques for processing sensor inputs with varying data quality need to be provided; systems responsiveness to changing plant conditions and multiple user requests should, in general, be improved; there is a need for porting applications from specialized AI machines onto conventional computer hardware without incurring unacceptable performance penalties; human factors guidelines are required for new user interfaces in AI applications; methods for verification and validation of AI-based systems must be developed; and, finally, there is a need for proven methods to evaluate use effectiveness and firmly establish the benefits of AI-based accident management systems. (orig./GL)

Severe accident phenomena

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jokiniemi, J.; Kilpi, K.; Lindholm, I.; Maekynen, J.; Pekkarinen, E.; Sairanen, R.; Silde, A.

1995-02-01

Severe accidents are nuclear reactor accidents in which the reactor core is substantially damaged. The report describes severe reactor accident phenomena and their significance for the safety of nuclear power plants. A comprehensive set of phenomena ranging from accident initiation to containment behaviour and containment integrity questions are covered. The report is based on expertise gained in the severe accident assessment projects conducted at the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT). (49 refs., 32 figs., 12 tabs.)

A virtual environment for simulation of radiological accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silva, Tadeu Augusto de Almeida; Farias, Oscar Luiz Monteiro de

2013-01-01

A virtual environment is a computer environment, representative of a subset of the real world, and where models of the real world entities, process and events are included in a virtual (three-dimensional) space. Virtual environments are ideal tools for simulation of certain critical processes, such as radiological accidents, where human beings or properties can suffer irreversible or long term damages. Radiological accidents are characterized by the significant exposure to radiation of specialized workers and general public. The early detection of a radiological accident and the determination of its possible extension are essential factors for the planning of prompt answers and emergency actions. This paper proposes the integration of georeferenced representation of the three-dimensional space and agent-based models, with the objective to construct virtual environments that have the capacity to simulate radiological accidents. The three-dimensional georeferenced representations of space candidates are: 1) the spatial representation of traditional geographical information systems (GIS); 2) the representation adopted by Google Maps®. Adding agents to these spatial representations allow us to simulate radiological accidents, quantify the doses received by members of the public, obtain a possible spatial distribution of people contaminated, estimate the number of contaminated individuals, estimate the impact on the health-network, estimate environmental impacts, generate exclusion zones, build alternative scenarios and train staff to deal with radiological accidents. (author)

FACTORS AFFECTING ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS IN BENGHAZI, LIBYA

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Ghaweel, Ibrahim; Mursi, Saleh A.; Jack, Joel P.; Joel, Irene

2009-01-01

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate the factors responsible for road traffic accidents in Benghazi. Material and Methods: Retrospective and descriptive studies were done in the years 2006-2007. The data was collected from Traffic and License Department, Benghazi. The data were analyzed, based on fatalities, the severely handicapped, hit and run victims and were correlated with age, sex, time, environmental factors, type of roads, etc. Results: One-Thousand-Two-Hundred-Sixty-Five accidents occurred between the years 2006-2007 within the Benghazi city limits; 11.14% of the injuries were fatal; 67.35% of the victims had severe injuries and 21.51% escaped with minor injuries. Table 1 shows that 73.04% lost their lives within the city limits, 13.47% on the fly-over, and 2.12% on minor roads connected to main roads within the city limits. The mean of the accidents and its standard deviation were 16.66± 25.67 with a variance of fatality of 1.54. Conclusion: It is concluded from the studies that major road traffic accidents occur because of environmental stress factors. In addition, fatalities and the seriousness of the accidents depend on a number of factors such as the age of the vehicle, safety measures, human error and time and place of accident. PMID:23012183

A virtual environment for simulation of radiological accidents

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Silva, Tadeu Augusto de Almeida, E-mail: tedsilva@ird.gov.br [Instituto de Radioprotecao e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Farias, Oscar Luiz Monteiro de, E-mail: fariasol@eng.uerj.br [Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

2013-07-01

A virtual environment is a computer environment, representative of a subset of the real world, and where models of the real world entities, process and events are included in a virtual (three-dimensional) space. Virtual environments are ideal tools for simulation of certain critical processes, such as radiological accidents, where human beings or properties can suffer irreversible or long term damages. Radiological accidents are characterized by the significant exposure to radiation of specialized workers and general public. The early detection of a radiological accident and the determination of its possible extension are essential factors for the planning of prompt answers and emergency actions. This paper proposes the integration of georeferenced representation of the three-dimensional space and agent-based models, with the objective to construct virtual environments that have the capacity to simulate radiological accidents. The three-dimensional georeferenced representations of space candidates are: 1) the spatial representation of traditional geographical information systems (GIS); 2) the representation adopted by Google Maps®. Adding agents to these spatial representations allow us to simulate radiological accidents, quantify the doses received by members of the public, obtain a possible spatial distribution of people contaminated, estimate the number of contaminated individuals, estimate the impact on the health-network, estimate environmental impacts, generate exclusion zones, build alternative scenarios and train staff to deal with radiological accidents. (author)

Criticality accident of nuclear fuel facility. Think back on JCO criticality accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Naito, Keiji

2003-09-01

This book is written in order to understand the fundamental knowledge of criticality safety or criticality accident of nuclear fuel facility by the citizens. It consists of four chapters such as critical conditions and criticality accident of nuclear facility, risk of criticality accident, prevention of criticality accident and a measure at an occurrence of criticality accident. A definition of criticality, control of critical conditions, an aspect of accident, a rate of incident, damage, three sufferers, safety control method of criticality, engineering and administrative control, safety design of criticality, investigation of failure of safety control of JCO criticality accident, safety culture are explained. JCO criticality accident was caused with intention of disregarding regulation. It is important that we recognize the correct risk of criticality accident of nuclear fuel facility and prevent disasters. On the basis of them, we should establish safety culture. (S.Y.)

Professional experience and traffic accidents/near-miss accidents among truck drivers.

Science.gov (United States)

Girotto, Edmarlon; Andrade, Selma Maffei de; González, Alberto Durán; Mesas, Arthur Eumann

2016-10-01

To investigate the relationship between the time working as a truck driver and the report of involvement in traffic accidents or near-miss accidents. A cross-sectional study was performed with truck drivers transporting products from the Brazilian grain harvest to the Port of Paranaguá, Paraná, Brazil. The drivers were interviewed regarding sociodemographic characteristics, working conditions, behavior in traffic and involvement in accidents or near-miss accidents in the previous 12 months. Subsequently, the participants answered a self-applied questionnaire on substance use. The time of professional experience as drivers was categorized in tertiles. Statistical analyses were performed through the construction of models adjusted by multinomial regression to assess the relationship between the length of experience as a truck driver and the involvement in accidents or near-miss accidents. This study included 665 male drivers with an average age of 42.2 (±11.1) years. Among them, 7.2% and 41.7% of the drivers reported involvement in accidents and near-miss accidents, respectively. In fully adjusted analysis, the 3rd tertile of professional experience (>22years) was shown to be inversely associated with involvement in accidents (odds ratio [OR] 0.29; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.16-0.52) and near-miss accidents (OR 0.17; 95% CI 0.05-0.53). The 2nd tertile of professional experience (11-22 years) was inversely associated with involvement in accidents (OR 0.63; 95% CI 0.40-0.98). An evident relationship was observed between longer professional experience and a reduction in reporting involvement in accidents and near-miss accidents, regardless of age, substance use, working conditions and behavior in traffic. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Safety and man in light of the analysis of major technical accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carnino, A.

1990-01-01

Up to the seventies, it was not easy to admit human failure as a cause of industrial accidents. Man was considered as reliable. With the perfection of materials, technical systems and industrial processes though, man has become the weakest link in the chain of technical events. He is and stays a remarkably reliable being, with a roughly estimated average failure quota of 1:1000 manipulations. If the hypothetical risk should be kept very low, this value can become a problem. Instead of judging a mistake as a punishable crime, as the present tendency will have it, a more differentiated, systematical approach is called for. By means of an analysis of four major accidents - Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Challenger and Bhopal - interesting parallels between the causes of such accidents can be found. Human failure, e.g. of a surgeon, is in most cases, the direct cause of an accident. A whole series of further causes, which can be assigned to different areas of influence but are usually interdependent, also play a role. While the human factor must be viewed as more or less predetermined, far reaching improvements can be made to reduce the risk of accident. Today, thanks to modern technology and new findings, it is possible to practically neutralize human error. This creates more costs and necessitates giving up short term production maximization. It also requires the willingness to give safety absolute priority. The name 'culture de surete' (safety culture) is used to describe this concept. Surprising similarities between the causes of the four mentioned major accidents were discovered. Certain circumstances, such as the time of day, played a role. The concept of a plant, resp. technical process has an essential influence, as well as company policy (importance of safety, preparation of emergency procedures, training, maintenance, company rules) and management (evaluation and realization of foreign and the company's own operation experiences and error alarms). (author) 7

Technique of semiautomatic surface reconstruction of the visible Korean human data using commercial software.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Jin Seo; Shin, Dong Sun; Chung, Min Suk; Hwang, Sung Bae; Chung, Jinoh

2007-11-01

This article describes the technique of semiautomatic surface reconstruction of anatomic structures using widely available commercial software. This technique would enable researchers to promptly and objectively perform surface reconstruction, creating three-dimensional anatomic images without any assistance from computer engineers. To develop the technique, we used data from the Visible Korean Human project, which produced digitalized photographic serial images of an entire cadaver. We selected 114 anatomic structures (skin [1], bones [32], knee joint structures [7], muscles [60], arteries [7], and nerves [7]) from the 976 anatomic images which were generated from the left lower limb of the cadaver. Using Adobe Photoshop, the selected anatomic structures in each serial image were outlined, creating a segmented image. The Photoshop files were then converted into Adobe Illustrator files to prepare isolated segmented images, so that the contours of the structure could be viewed independent of the surrounding anatomy. Using Alias Maya, these isolated segmented images were then stacked to construct a contour image. Gaps between the contour lines were filled with surfaces, and three-dimensional surface reconstruction could be visualized with Rhinoceros. Surface imperfections were then corrected to complete the three-dimensional images in Alias Maya. We believe that the three-dimensional anatomic images created by these methods will have widespread application in both medical education and research. 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Global ship accidents and ocean swell-related sea states

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Z. Zhang

2017-11-01

Full Text Available With the increased frequency of shipping activities, navigation safety has become a major concern, especially when economic losses, human casualties and environmental issues are considered. As a contributing factor, the sea state plays a significant role in shipping safety. However, the types of dangerous sea states that trigger serious shipping accidents are not well understood. To address this issue, we analyzed the sea state characteristics during ship accidents that occurred in poor weather or heavy seas based on a 10-year ship accident dataset. Sea state parameters of a numerical wave model, i.e., significant wave height, mean wave period and mean wave direction, were analyzed for the selected ship accident cases. The results indicated that complex sea states with the co-occurrence of wind sea and swell conditions represent threats to sailing vessels, especially when these conditions include similar wave periods and oblique wave directions.

Global ship accidents and ocean swell-related sea states

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Zhiwei; Li, Xiao-Ming

2017-11-01

With the increased frequency of shipping activities, navigation safety has become a major concern, especially when economic losses, human casualties and environmental issues are considered. As a contributing factor, the sea state plays a significant role in shipping safety. However, the types of dangerous sea states that trigger serious shipping accidents are not well understood. To address this issue, we analyzed the sea state characteristics during ship accidents that occurred in poor weather or heavy seas based on a 10-year ship accident dataset. Sea state parameters of a numerical wave model, i.e., significant wave height, mean wave period and mean wave direction, were analyzed for the selected ship accident cases. The results indicated that complex sea states with the co-occurrence of wind sea and swell conditions represent threats to sailing vessels, especially when these conditions include similar wave periods and oblique wave directions.

Factors Affecting Accidents Risks among Truck Drivers In Egypt

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elshamly Ahmed Fathalla

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Egypt is ranked among the countries with the highest rates of road accidents. According to the American Chamber of Commerce more than 96% of Egypt's goods are transported by trucks and due to their large volume and excessive weight, the severity and number of truck accident fatalities are much higher than other vehicles in Egypt. The present study aims at identifying truck driver's behavior and its influence on crash involvement. Due to the shortage in recording accident data and the inaccurate road accident audit, data was collected from several governorates in Egypt through questionnaire. Questionnaire forms were filled out through personal interviews with truck drivers. The total number of respondents was 643. The final analysis was made on the 615 questionnaires with complete answers. The data was analyzed and logistic regression was applied to accident related data to examine the contributing factors affecting accident occurrence of truck drivers. Results showed that fatigue in terms of driving hours (continuous and total and lack of sleep, drug use during driving, and driver obesity are the most influencing factors on the occurrence of truck accidents in Egypt. The findings of this research highlight the important role human factors have on the risk of crash involvement amongst Egypt's truck drivers and the need to improve their work conditions.

Application of a Software tool for Evaluating Human Factors in Accident Sequences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Queral, Cesar; Exposito, Antonio; Gonzalez, Isaac; Quiroga, Juan Antonio; Ibarra, Aitor; Hortal, Javier; Hulsund, John-Einar; Nilsen, Svein

2006-01-01

The Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) includes the actions of the operator like elements in the set of the considered protection performances during accident sequences. Nevertheless, its impact throughout a sequence is not analyzed in a dynamic way. In this sense, it is convenient to make more detailed studies about its importance in the dynamics of the sequences, letting make studies of sensitivity respect to the human reliability and the response times. For this reason, the CSN is involved in several activities oriented to develop a new safety analysis methodology, the Integrated Safety Assessment (ISA), which must be able to incorporate operator actions in conventional thermo-hydraulic (TH) simulations. One of them is the collaboration project between CSN, HRP and the DSE-UPM that started in 2003. In the framework of this project, a software tool has been developed to incorporate operator actions in TH simulations. As a part of the ISA, this tool permits to quantify human error probabilities (HEP) and to evaluate its impact in the final state of the plant. Independently, it can be used for evaluating the impact of the execution by operators of procedures and guidelines in the final state of the plant and the evaluation of the allowable response times for the manual actions of the operator. The results obtained in the first pilot case are included in this paper. (authors)

The early medical response to the Goiania accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Valverde, N.J.; Oliveira, A.R.

2000-01-01

The Goiania accident was the most severe radiological one that ever happened in the western hemisphere. The response to its human, social, environmental, economical and psychological burdens represented a huge challenge. Thanks to a multi-institutional intervention the consequences of the accident were greatly minimised. The medical response followed the same pattern and was based on a three-level system of progressive assistance. The early medical response encompassed medical and 'radiological' triage, admission to a specially prepared ward of a local hospital and treatment at a reference center in Rio de Janeiro. (author)

Study of DNA reconstruction enzymes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sekiguchi, M [Kyushu Univ., Fukuoka (Japan). Faculty of Science

1976-12-01

Description was made of the characteristics and mechanism of 3 reconstructive enzymes which received from M. luteus or E. coli or T4, and of which natures were clarified as reconstructive enzymes of DNA irradiated with ultraviolet rays. As characteristics, the site of breaking, reaction, molecular weight, electric charge in the neutrality and a specific adhesion to DNA irradiated with ultraviolet rays were mentioned. As to mutant of ultraviolet ray sensitivity, hereditary control mechanism of removal and reconstruction by endo-nuclease activation was described, and suggestion was referred to removal and reconstruction of cells of xedoderma pigmentosum which is a hereditary disease of human. Description was also made as to the mechanism of exonuclease activation which separates dimer selectively from irradiated DNA.

The situation of hazardous chemical accidents in China between 2000 and 2006

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Duan Weili [Institute of Safety Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, Guangdong (China); Chen Guohua, E-mail: scut.safetycenter@gmail.com [Institute of Safety Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, Guangdong (China); Ye Qing; Chen Qingguang [Institute of Safety Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, Guangdong (China)

2011-02-28

From the aspects of the total quantity of accidents, regional inequality, enterprises scale and environmental pollution accidents, this study makes an analysis of hazardous chemical accidents in China for the period spanning from 2000 to 2006. The following results are obtained: firstly, there were lots of accidents and fatalities in hazardous chemical business, i.e., the number of casualty accidents fluctuated between 200 and 600/year, the number of fatality fluctuated between 220 and 1100/year. Secondly, the accident rate in developed southeast coastal areas, e.g., Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, was far higher than that in the northwest regions, e.g., Xizang, Xinjiang, and Qinghai. Thirdly, nearly 80% of dangerous chemical accidents had occurred in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Finally, various sudden environmental pollution accidents resulted from hazardous chemicals were frequent in recent years, causing a huge damage to human and property. Then, based on the readjustment of economic structure in the last decades, the development status of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in SMEs and other factors, the paper explores the main causes, which offers valuable insight into measures that should be taken to reduce hazardous chemical accidents.

The situation of hazardous chemical accidents in China between 2000 and 2006

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duan Weili; Chen Guohua; Ye Qing; Chen Qingguang

2011-01-01

From the aspects of the total quantity of accidents, regional inequality, enterprises scale and environmental pollution accidents, this study makes an analysis of hazardous chemical accidents in China for the period spanning from 2000 to 2006. The following results are obtained: firstly, there were lots of accidents and fatalities in hazardous chemical business, i.e., the number of casualty accidents fluctuated between 200 and 600/year, the number of fatality fluctuated between 220 and 1100/year. Secondly, the accident rate in developed southeast coastal areas, e.g., Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, was far higher than that in the northwest regions, e.g., Xizang, Xinjiang, and Qinghai. Thirdly, nearly 80% of dangerous chemical accidents had occurred in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Finally, various sudden environmental pollution accidents resulted from hazardous chemicals were frequent in recent years, causing a huge damage to human and property. Then, based on the readjustment of economic structure in the last decades, the development status of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in SMEs and other factors, the paper explores the main causes, which offers valuable insight into measures that should be taken to reduce hazardous chemical accidents.

Global risk of radioactive fallout after major nuclear reactor accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lelieveld, J.; Kunkel, D.; Lawrence, M.G.

2012-01-01

Major reactor accidents of nuclear power plants are rare, yet the consequences are catastrophic. But what is meant by ''rare''? And what can be learned from the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents? Here we assess the cumulative, global risk of exposure to radioactivity due to atmospheric dispersion of gases and particles following severe nuclear accidents (the most severe ones on the International Nuclear Event Scale, INES 7), using particulate "1"3"7Cs and gaseous "1"3"1I as proxies for the fallout. Our results indicate that previously the occurrence of INES 7 major accidents and the risks of radioactive contamination have been underestimated. Using a global model of the atmosphere we compute that on average, in the event of a major reactor accident of any nuclear power plant worldwide, more than 90% of emitted "1"3"7Cs would be transported beyond 50 km and about 50% beyond 1000 km distance before being deposited. This corroborates that such accidents have large-scale and trans-boundary impacts. Although the emission strengths and atmospheric removal processes of "1"3"7Cs and "1"3"1I are quite different, the radioactive contamination patterns over land and the human exposure due to deposition are computed to be similar. High human exposure risks occur around reactors in densely populated regions, notably in West Europe and South Asia, where a major reactor accident can subject around 30 million people to radioactive contamination. The recent decision by Germany to phase out its nuclear reactors will reduce the national risk, though a large risk will still remain from the reactors in neighbouring countries.

WWER-440/V-230 Confinement modernization to upgrade the critical safety function 'Containment integrity' in case of severe accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sartmadjiev, A.

1999-01-01

In this lecture the WWER-440/V-230 confinement modernization to upgrade the critical safety function 'Containment integrity' in case of severe accident is presented. There are discussed: design limitations of the location system; consequence from these design limitations; a few confinement reconstruction concepts of this type of units worldwide; and purpose of the confinement reconstruction - to improve significantly the original design, ensuring (1) localization for all possible primary breaks and (2) limitation of the radiological consequences for the personnel, the population and the environment below the regulatory requirements

A Human and Organizational Factors Perspective on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident - March 11 - March 15, 2011

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gisquet, Elsa; Older, Malka

2015-01-01

This report examines the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident using a human and organizational factors framework. It analyzes the crisis at three levels: the front-line operators; the plant as a whole; and the political context including the management team of the electric company and national politicians. By looking at each of these levels as well as the relationships between them, this report describes the way the organizational structures and their accident management procedures contribute to or hinder the resolution of the crisis. The report offers detailed chronologies of the unfolding of the crisis at each of the three active reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi, at the political level, and at Fukushima Dai-ni. These case descriptions are used as the basis for an analysis drawing on risk and crisis management studies, in particular examining Perrow's (1999) centralization-decentralization conundrum and Weick's (1988, 1993, 1995) work on sense-making, among others. The main findings include: 1/ The accident disrupts not only the situation, but also in the ways people go about gathering information on the situation People had to make sense of what happened and find new ways to interpret limited information 2/ Tue interruption of the communication flow between the ERC and MCR can have dramatic consequences. It is important to maintain the communication between the ERC and MCR in all circumstances. 3/ The difficulty of simultaneously supervise crisis room tranches due to its under sizing. A capacity adjustment to the ERC must be made according to the number of reactors involved. 4/ Because of the reluctance to make the decision to test a new possibility in a crisis context, internal coordination is necessary to decide on the implementation of new solutions. Cross-functional teams can be very useful in coming up with new solutions. 5/ Worker safety policies should be as clear and specific as possible before accidents occur. Where sub-contractors are involved

Status of radiation dose and radioactive contamination due to the Fukushima accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baba, Mamoru

2016-01-01

The accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), March 2011, caused serious radioactive contamination over wide area in east Japan. Therefore, it is important to know the effect of the accident and the status of NPP. This paper provides a review on the status of radiation dose and radioactive contamination caused by the accident on the basis of publicized information. Monitoring of radiation dose and exposure dose of residents has been conducted extensively by the governments and various organizations. The effective dose of general residents due to the accident proved to be less than a mSv both for external and internal dose. The equivalent committed dose of thyroid was evaluated to be a few mSv in mean value and less than 50 mSv even for children. Monitoring of radioactivity concentration has been carried out on food ingredients, milk and tap water, and actual meal. These studies indicated the percentage of foods above the regulation standard was over 10% in 2011 but decreasing steadily with time. The internal dose due to foods proved to be tens of μSv and much less than that due to natural 40 K even in the Fukushima area and decreasing steadily, although high level concentration is still observed in wild plants, wild mushrooms, animals and some kind of fishes. According to extensive studies, not only the effect of the accident but also the pathway and countermeasures against radioactive contamination have been revealed, and they are applied very effectively for restoration of environment and reconstruction of the area

Status of radiation dose and radioactive contamination due to the Fukushima accident

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baba, Mamoru [Tohoku Univeristy, Sendai (Japan)

2016-06-15

The accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), March 2011, caused serious radioactive contamination over wide area in east Japan. Therefore, it is important to know the effect of the accident and the status of NPP. This paper provides a review on the status of radiation dose and radioactive contamination caused by the accident on the basis of publicized information. Monitoring of radiation dose and exposure dose of residents has been conducted extensively by the governments and various organizations. The effective dose of general residents due to the accident proved to be less than a mSv both for external and internal dose. The equivalent committed dose of thyroid was evaluated to be a few mSv in mean value and less than 50 mSv even for children. Monitoring of radioactivity concentration has been carried out on food ingredients, milk and tap water, and actual meal. These studies indicated the percentage of foods above the regulation standard was over 10% in 2011 but decreasing steadily with time. The internal dose due to foods proved to be tens of μSv and much less than that due to natural {sup 40}K even in the Fukushima area and decreasing steadily, although high level concentration is still observed in wild plants, wild mushrooms, animals and some kind of fishes. According to extensive studies, not only the effect of the accident but also the pathway and countermeasures against radioactive contamination have been revealed, and they are applied very effectively for restoration of environment and reconstruction of the area.

Evaluation of the 17 June 1997 Criticality Accident at Arzamas-16

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morris Klein

1999-01-01

On June 17, 1997, a critically accident occurred at Arzamas-16, which resulted in the death (within three days) of A. N. Zakharov, a Russian scientist with 20 years' experience conducting multiassembly experiments. In this case, the multiplying assembly was a fast metal system consisting of a 235 U (90% enriched) core and a copper reflector. According to the Russian press, ''Zakharov misjudged the degree of criticality of the breeding system and committed several gross violations of regulations.'' As we see it, there were three major causes of this accident. First, the experiment was flawed by Zakharov's misreading of the appropriate size of the assembly, which he took from a notebook that described the old experiment he was attempting to repeat. Second, he disregarded the appropriate procedures and safety regulations. Third, these two mistakes were compounded by an improperly set audible alarm system and Zakharov's unsafe use of the table. We also discuss our reconstruction of the accident based on information given by the Russians to US scientists and information culled from Russian newspaper and magazine articles. We also describe our thoughts on the behavior of the assembly following the accident and the radiation dose level Zakharov may have received. These levels match values we have lately obtained from translations of Russian news articles. This accident clearly points out the penalty for weak administrative control of work with multiplying systems. Criticality experimentation requires formality of operation. The experimenter, his peers, and a trained safety person need to document that they understand the experiment and how it will be conducted. Knowing that the experiment was successfully run several decades ago does not justify bypassing a safety evaluation

Prevention of pedestrian accidents.

OpenAIRE

Kendrick, D

1993-01-01

Child pedestrian accidents are the most common road traffic accident resulting in injury. Much of the existing work on road traffic accidents is based on analysing clusters of accidents despite evidence that child pedestrian accidents tend to be more dispersed than this. This paper analyses pedestrian accidents in 573 children aged 0-11 years by a locally derived deprivation score for the years 1988-90. The analysis shows a significantly higher accident rate in deprived areas and a dose respo...

Accident Locations, MDTA Accidents, Accidents on MDTA locations, Accidents on I 95, US 50, I 695, Accident on John F Kennedy Highway, Nice Bridge, Bay Bridge locations, Published in 2011, 1:1200 (1in=100ft) scale, Maryland Transportation Authority.

Data.gov (United States)

NSGIC State | GIS Inventory — Accident Locations dataset current as of 2011. MDTA Accidents, Accidents on MDTA locations, Accidents on I 95, US 50, I 695, Accident on John F Kennedy Highway, Nice...

Increase the Safety of Road Traffic Accidents by Applying Clustering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kos Goran

2013-12-01

Full Text Available In terms of continual increase of number of traffic accidents and alarming trend of increasing number of traffic accidents with catastrophic consequences for human life and health, it is necessary to actively research and develop methods to combat these trends. One of the measures is the implementation of advanced information systems in existing traffic environment. Accidents clusters, as databases of traffic accidents, introduce a new dimension in traffic systems in the form of experience, providing information on current accidents and the ones that have previously occurred in a given period. This paper proposes a new approach to predictive management of traffic processes, based on the collection of data in real time and is based on accidents clusters. The modern traffic information services collects road traffic status data from a wide variety of traffic sensing systems using modern ICT technologies, creating the most accurate road traffic situation awareness achieved so far. Road traffic situation awareness enhanced by accident clusters' data can be visualized and distributed in various ways (including the forms of dynamic heat maps and on various information platforms, suiting the requirements of the end-users. Accent is placed on their significant features that are based on additional knowledge about existing traffic processes and distribution of important traffic information in order to prevent and reduce traffic accidents.

A human reliability analysis of the Three Mile power plant accident considering the THERP and ATHEANA methodologies; Uma analise da confiabilidade humana do acidente na Usina de Three Mile Island II considerando as metodologias Therp e Atheana

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fonseca, Renato Alves da

2004-03-15

The main purpose of this work is the study of human reliability using the THERP (Technique for Human Error Prediction) and ATHEANA methods (A Technique for Human Error Analysis), and some tables and also, from case studies presented on the THERP Handbook to develop a qualitative and quantitative study of nuclear power plant accident. This accident occurred in the TMI (Three Mile Island Unit 2) power plant, PWR type plant, on March 28th, 1979. The accident analysis has revealed a series of incorrect actions, which resulted in the Unit 2 shut down and permanent loss of the reactor. This study also aims at enhancing the understanding of the THERP method and ATHEANA, and of its practical applications. In addition, it is possible to understand the influence of plant operational status on human failures and of these on equipment of a system, in this case, a nuclear power plant. (author)

Radiological dose reconstruction for birds reconciles outcomes of Fukushima with knowledge of dose-effect relationships

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Garnier-Laplace, Jacqueline; Beaugelin-Seiller, Karine; Della-Vedova, Claire

2015-01-01

We reconstructed the radiological dose for birds observed at 300 census sites in the 50-km northwest area affected by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant over 2011-2014. Substituting the ambient dose rate measured at the census points (from 0.16 to 31 μGy h(-1)) with the dos...

Radiation accidents: occurrence, types, consequences, medical management, and the lessons to be learned

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Turai, I.; Veress, K.

2001-01-01

The paper reviews the frequency, causes and occurrence of radiation accidents with some significant exposure to human. More detailed information is provided in tabulated form on the health consequences of those twenty severe radiation accidents that occurred in 1986-2000, world-wide. Reference is given to the very low cumulative incidence of significant radiation accidents, as during the last 57 years there were, in average, seven registered accidents annually in all countries of the world. Thus, the chance for most of the physicians to meet a patient with symptoms of acute radiation injury during their professional career is very low

Design of a High Power Robotic Manipulator for Emergency Response to the Nuclear Accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Jongwon; Bae, Yeong-Geol; Kim, Myoung Ho; Choi, Young Soo

2016-01-01

An accident in a nuclear facility causes a great social cost. To prevent an unexpected nuclear accident from spreading to the catastrophic disaster, emergency response action in early stage is required. However, high radiation environment has been proved as a challenging obstacle for human workers to access to the accident site and take an action in previous accident cases. Therefore, emergency response robotic technology to be used in a nuclear accident site instead of human workers are actively conducted in domestically and internationally. Robots in an accident situation are required to carry out a variety of tasks depend on the types and patterns of accidents. An emergency response usually includes removing of debris, make an access road to a certain place and handling valves. These tasks normally involve high payload handling. A small sized high power robotic manipulator can be an appropriate candidate to deal with a wide spectrum of tasks in an emergency situation. In this paper, we discuss about the design of a high power robotic manipulator, which is capable of handling high payloads for an initial response action to the nuclear facility accident. In this paper, we presented a small sized high power robotic manipulator design. Actuator types of manipulator was selected and mechanical structure was discussed. In the future, the servo valve and hydraulic pump systems will be determined. Furthermore, control algorithms and test bed experiments will be also conducted

Design of a High Power Robotic Manipulator for Emergency Response to the Nuclear Accidents

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Park, Jongwon; Bae, Yeong-Geol; Kim, Myoung Ho; Choi, Young Soo [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

An accident in a nuclear facility causes a great social cost. To prevent an unexpected nuclear accident from spreading to the catastrophic disaster, emergency response action in early stage is required. However, high radiation environment has been proved as a challenging obstacle for human workers to access to the accident site and take an action in previous accident cases. Therefore, emergency response robotic technology to be used in a nuclear accident site instead of human workers are actively conducted in domestically and internationally. Robots in an accident situation are required to carry out a variety of tasks depend on the types and patterns of accidents. An emergency response usually includes removing of debris, make an access road to a certain place and handling valves. These tasks normally involve high payload handling. A small sized high power robotic manipulator can be an appropriate candidate to deal with a wide spectrum of tasks in an emergency situation. In this paper, we discuss about the design of a high power robotic manipulator, which is capable of handling high payloads for an initial response action to the nuclear facility accident. In this paper, we presented a small sized high power robotic manipulator design. Actuator types of manipulator was selected and mechanical structure was discussed. In the future, the servo valve and hydraulic pump systems will be determined. Furthermore, control algorithms and test bed experiments will be also conducted.

Traffic Accidents And Destiny Relation -In Contex Prayers, Cha-rity And Resignation-

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Osman ORAL

2016-07-01

Full Text Available There are established rules to avoid traffic Chaos. Failure to do so may result in traffic accidents which are sad events. God tied everything in this world to some reasons. Even though the humans fulfill these reasons, God creates them in accordance with the free will of the person. This is a divine law, that is, fate. Are traffic accidents fate? How much do our will and precautions affect this? With prayer and charity, can we prevent accidents that could happen to us? Do people die in traffic accidents because their life-spans expired? Such questions in people's minds may be a problem. This article will offer solutions to the discussions concerning traffic accidents and fate, within the fra-mework of Islamic theology and creed.

Age-Based Comparison of Human Dendritic Spine Structure Using Complete Three-Dimensional Reconstructions

Science.gov (United States)

Benavides-Piccione, Ruth; Fernaud-Espinosa, Isabel; Robles, Victor; Yuste, Rafael; DeFelipe, Javier

2013-01-01

Dendritic spines of pyramidal neurons are targets of most excitatory synapses in the cerebral cortex. Recent evidence suggests that the morphology of the dendritic spine could determine its synaptic strength and learning rules. However, unfortunately, there are scant data available regarding the detailed morphology of these structures for the human cerebral cortex. In the present study, we analyzed over 8900 individual dendritic spines that were completely 3D reconstructed along the length of apical and basal dendrites of layer III pyramidal neurons in the cingulate cortex of 2 male humans (aged 40 and 85 years old), using intracellular injections of Lucifer Yellow in fixed tissue. We assembled a large, quantitative database, which revealed a major reduction in spine densities in the aged case. Specifically, small and short spines of basal dendrites and long spines of apical dendrites were lost, regardless of the distance from the soma. Given the age difference between the cases, our results suggest selective alterations in spines with aging in humans and indicate that the spine volume and length are regulated by different biological mechanisms. PMID:22710613

Identification of Drivers in Traffic Accidents and Determination of Passenger Position in a Vehicle by Finger Marks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matej Trapečar

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The following paper aims to illustrate certain investigative activities in the forensic analysis and examination of the scene of traffic accidents. When a traffic accident occurs, the scene must be secured as soon as possible to enable professional and proper forensic investigation. Failure to secure the accident scene might result in losing or contaminating the traces, which makes it more difficult to prove or explain trace evidence in further procedure or even makes such evidence inadmissible. The topic is discussed from the viewpoint of crime scene examination, since analysing and investigating traffic accidents requires a great deal of expertise and attention of the investigators. Complex traffic accidents include feigned accidents, hit-and-run accidents as well as accidents in which the driver and passengers, dead or alive, need to be identified. In identifying the passengers, standard criminal investigation methods as well as police forensic and forensic medicine methods are followed. Such methods include confirming the identities with identity documents, other documents and vehicle ownership, fingerprints, biological traces, fibre traces, contact traces, traces of physical injuries on the driver and passengers, etc. According to the results obtained in fingerprint detection on human skin surfaces, this method can also be applied in confirming physical contact between the driver and the passengers in the accident, e.g. in the event of moving the victims and changing the scene of the accident.   Key words: traffic accidents, accident analysis, driver's identity, passengers' position, finger marks, human skin

Analysis of the methods and reconstruction of iodine doses from the Chernobyl release in Belarus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lutsko, A.; Krivoruchko, K.; Gribov, A.

1997-01-01

The paper considers the method of reconstructing the iodine-131 fallout based on the systematic exposure measurements. The measurements used were taken with standard DP-5 dosimeters at the monitoring sites of the State Hydrometeorological Service network. These data have been collected since the Chernobyl NPP accident. A short-living exponent has been deduced from the exposure dose dying away. Maps of the iodine-131 release in the period of May 1 - 31, 1996 have been constructed in the attempt to estimate the doses for the initial period of the accident. The paper also dwells on the intricacy of the problem and the refinements to be made for the dose commitments with allowance for a continuing release and meteorological changes that are comparable in time with the half-life events of iodine 131 decay. A comparative analysis has been made of various methods of the dose reconstruction. The results obtained are compared with the maps of the increased incidence of the thyroid gland cancer in adults and children in Belarus. (authors) 14 refs., 2 tabs., 4 figs

Recursive modeling of loss of control in human and organizational processes: a systemic model for accident analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kontogiannis, Tom; Malakis, Stathis

2012-09-01

A recursive model of accident investigation is proposed by exploiting earlier work in systems thinking. Safety analysts can understand better the underlying causes of decision or action flaws by probing into the patterns of breakdown in the organization of safety. For this deeper analysis, a cybernetic model of organizational factors and a control model of human processes have been integrated in this article (i.e., the viable system model and the extended control model). The joint VSM-ECOM framework has been applied to a case study to help safety practitioners with the analysis of patterns of breakdown with regard to how operators and organizations manage goal conflicts, monitor work progress, recognize weak signals, align goals across teams, and adapt plans on the fly. The recursive accident representation brings together several organizational issues (e.g., the dilemma of autonomy versus compliance, or the interaction between structure and strategy) and addresses how operators adapt to challenges in their environment by adjusting their modes of functioning and recovery. Finally, it facilitates the transfer of knowledge from diverse incidents and near misses within similar domains of practice. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Research trend on human error reduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyaoka, Sadaoki

1990-01-01

Human error has been the problem in all industries. In 1988, the Bureau of Mines, Department of the Interior, USA, carried out the worldwide survey on the human error in all industries in relation to the fatal accidents in mines. There was difference in the results according to the methods of collecting data, but the proportion that human error took in the total accidents distributed in the wide range of 20∼85%, and was 35% on the average. The rate of occurrence of accidents and troubles in Japanese nuclear power stations is shown, and the rate of occurrence of human error is 0∼0.5 cases/reactor-year, which did not much vary. Therefore, the proportion that human error took in the total tended to increase, and it has become important to reduce human error for lowering the rate of occurrence of accidents and troubles hereafter. After the TMI accident in 1979 in USA, the research on man-machine interface became active, and after the Chernobyl accident in 1986 in USSR, the problem of organization and management has been studied. In Japan, 'Safety 21' was drawn up by the Advisory Committee for Energy, and also the annual reports on nuclear safety pointed out the importance of human factors. The state of the research on human factors in Japan and abroad and three targets to reduce human error are reported. (K.I.)

Modified ensemble Kalman filter for nuclear accident atmospheric dispersion: prediction improved and source estimated.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, X L; Su, G F; Yuan, H Y; Chen, J G; Huang, Q Y

2014-09-15

Atmospheric dispersion models play an important role in nuclear power plant accident management. A reliable estimation of radioactive material distribution in short range (about 50 km) is in urgent need for population sheltering and evacuation planning. However, the meteorological data and the source term which greatly influence the accuracy of the atmospheric dispersion models are usually poorly known at the early phase of the emergency. In this study, a modified ensemble Kalman filter data assimilation method in conjunction with a Lagrangian puff-model is proposed to simultaneously improve the model prediction and reconstruct the source terms for short range atmospheric dispersion using the off-site environmental monitoring data. Four main uncertainty parameters are considered: source release rate, plume rise height, wind speed and wind direction. Twin experiments show that the method effectively improves the predicted concentration distribution, and the temporal profiles of source release rate and plume rise height are also successfully reconstructed. Moreover, the time lag in the response of ensemble Kalman filter is shortened. The method proposed here can be a useful tool not only in the nuclear power plant accident emergency management but also in other similar situation where hazardous material is released into the atmosphere. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Safety investigation of team performance in accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petkov, G.; Todorov, V.; Takov, T.; Petrov, V.; Stoychev, K.; Vladimirov, V.; Chukov, I.

2004-01-01

The paper presents the capacities of the performance evaluation of teamwork (PET) method. Its practicability and efficiency are illustrated by retrospective human reliability analyse of the famous nuclear and maritime accidents. A quantitative assessment of operators' performance on the base of thermo-hydraulic (T/H) calculations and full-scope simulator data for set of NPP design basic accidents with WWER is demonstrated. The last data are obtained on the 'WWER-1000' full-scope simulator of Kozloduy NPP during the regular practical training of the operators' teams. An outlook on the 'evaluation system of main control room (MCR) operators' reliability' project, based on simulator data of operators' training is given

Keynote on lessons from major radiation accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ortiz, P.; Oresegun, M.; Wheatley, J.

2000-01-01

Generic lessons have been learned from a relatively large number of accidents in the most relevant practices (a set of analysis have been made on about 90 radiotherapy events, 43 industrial radiography and nine from industrial irradiations); more specific lessons have been drawn from in-depth investigations of individual accidents. The body of knowledge is grouped as follows: a) radiotherapy is very unique in that humans (patients) are purposely given very high radiation doses (20-75 Gy) by placing them in the radiation beam or by placing radioactive sources in contact with tissues. Intended deterministic effects are the essence of the normal radiotherapy practice and relatively small deviation from the intended doses, i.e,, slightly higher or lower than intended may cause increased rate of severe complication or reduce probability of cure. Consequences of major accidents have been devastating, affecting tens, even hundreds of patients and causing death (directly or indirectly) to a large number of them; b) accidents involving industrial radiography are the most frequent cause of overexposure to workers (radiographers); c) accidents with industrial irradiators have lower probability of occurrence, however, they are deemed to be fatal, especially when whole body exposure to panoramic gamma irradiators occur; partial body irradiation from industrial or research accelerator beams has led to amputation of hands and legs; d) when control of sources was relinquished ('orphan' sources) this has resulted in severe injuries, in some cases death and widespread contamination of the environment. A tool for further dissemination of lessons will be an international reporting system of unusual radiation events (RADEV), being introduced world-wide. Accidents were rarely due to a single human error or isolated equipment failure. In most cases there was a combination of elements such as: a) unawareness of the potential for an accident, b) poor education, which usually did not

A Cellular Automata-Based Simulation Tool for Real Fire Accident Prevention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacek M. Czerniak

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Many serious real-life problems could be simulated using cellular automata theory. There were a lot of fires in public places which kill many people. Proposed method, called Cellular Automata Evaluation (CAEva in short, is using cellular automata theory and could be used for checking buildings conditions for fire accident. The tests performed on real accident showed that an appropriately configured program allows obtaining a realistic simulation of human evacuation. The authors analyze some real accidents and proved that CAEva method appears as a very promising solution, especially in the cases of building renovations or temporary unavailability of escape routes.

Modelling and forecasting occupational accidents of different severity levels in Spain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carmen Carnero, Maria; Jose Pedregal, Diego

2010-01-01

The control of accidents at the work place is a critical issue all over the world. The consequences of occupational accidents in terms of costs for the company in which the accidents take place is only one minor matter, being the social impact and the loss of human life the most controversial effects of this important problem. The methods used to forecast future evolution of accidents are often limited to trend estimations and projections, being the scientific literature on this topic rather scarce. This paper aims at showing and predicting the evolution of Spanish occupational accidents of different levels of severity, allowing the evaluation of the influence that preventive actions carried out by public administrations or private companies may have over the number of occupational accidents. Though some contributions may be found on this topic for Spain, this paper is the first contribution that forecast occupational accidents for different levels of severity using Multivariate Unobserved Components models developed in a State Space framework extended to deal with the irregular sampling interval of the data. Data from 1998 to 2009 have been used to test the efficacy of the forecasting system.

Considerations relating to the operation of PWRs after an incident or accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Porecki, D.; Griffon, M.; Capel, R.

1981-01-01

All safety analysts are agreed that the main cause of the escalation of the Three Mile Island (TMI-2) accident was that the operator failed to diagnose the situation correctly in the first hours of the accident. Human error contributed a great deal to the accident and the underlying reasons for this should be examined. Lack of understanding of the physical phenomena involved was clearly much to blame, but the operator's environment also played a substantial role. The TMI-2 accident serves as a reminder both to designers and operators of the importance of the ''man-machine interface''. Safety analysis should in future pay greater heed to problems arising during operation and to the prevention of human error. This paper summarizes the short- and medium-term steps taken by Electricite de France (EDF) in this direction with regard to the improvement of data processing and presentation, increased reliability of operator action, the training of operating personnel, operating experience feedback and current thinking on the man-machine interface. The company Framatome, the Commissariat a l'energie atomique (CEA) and agencies which specialize in psychology and ergonomics are participating with EDF in this in-depth study. Increasing the reliability of operator action will be the subject of a special exposition dealing with diagnosis of accidents and post-accident behaviour. With regard to the latter, it is planned to update existing procedures and carry out a comprehensive review of their technical and formal presentation. (author)

Considerations relating to the operation of PWRs after an incident or accident

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Porecki, D [Societe Franco-Americaine de Constructions Atomiques (FRAMATOME), 92 - Courbevoie (France); Griffon, M [CEA Centre d' Etudes Nucleaires de Fontenay-aux-Roses, 92 (France). Inst. de Protection et de Surete Nucleaire; Capel, R [Electricite de France, 75 - Paris. Service de la Production Thermique

1981-01-01

All safety analysts are agreed that the main cause of the escalation of the Three Mile Island (TMI-2) accident was that the operator failed to diagnose the situation correctly in the first hours of the accident. Human error contributed a great deal to the accident and the underlying reasons for this should be examined. Lack of understanding of the physical phenomena involved was clearly much to blame, but the operator's environment also played a substantial role. The TMI-2 accident serves as a reminder both to designers and operators of the importance of the ''man-machine interface''. Safety analysis should in future pay greater heed to problems arising during operation and to the prevention of human error. This paper summarizes the short- and medium-term steps taken by Electricite de France (EDF) in this direction with regard to the improvement of data processing and presentation, increased reliability of operator action, the training of operating personnel, operating experience feedback and current thinking on the man-machine interface. The company Framatome, the Commissariat a l'energie atomique (CEA) and agencies which specialize in psychology and ergonomics are participating with EDF in this in-depth study. Increasing the reliability of operator action will be the subject of a special exposition dealing with diagnosis of accidents and post-accident behaviour. With regard to the latter, it is planned to update existing procedures and carry out a comprehensive review of their technical and formal presentation.

Strontium-90 concentrations in human teeth in South Ukraine, 5 years after the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kulev, Y.D.; Polikarpov, G.G.; Prigodey, E.V.; Assimakopoulos, P.A.

1994-01-01

Approximately 1000 human teeth, collected in South Ukraine, in 1990-1991, were measured for 90 Sr concentration. The teeth were grouped into 18 samples according to the age and sex of the donors. Measured levels of 90 Sr concentrations were lower by a factor of 10 than measurements taken in the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. An interesting feature of the data is a 3-fold enhancement of contamination levels in the 25-45 year-old age group of the male population. A possible explanation for this anomaly is that this age group contains a significant number of men who were mobilized immediately after the Chernobyl accident for clean-up operations within the 30-km zone around the damaged nuclear power plant

Landscapes of human evolution: models and methods of tectonic geomorphology and the reconstruction of hominin landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Bailey, Geoffrey N; Reynolds, Sally C; King, Geoffrey C P

2011-03-01

This paper examines the relationship between complex and tectonically active landscapes and patterns of human evolution. We show how active tectonics can produce dynamic landscapes with geomorphological and topographic features that may be critical to long-term patterns of hominin land use, but which are not typically addressed in landscape reconstructions based on existing geological and paleoenvironmental principles. We describe methods of representing topography at a range of scales using measures of roughness based on digital elevation data, and combine the resulting maps with satellite imagery and ground observations to reconstruct features of the wider landscape as they existed at the time of hominin occupation and activity. We apply these methods to sites in South Africa, where relatively stable topography facilitates reconstruction. We demonstrate the presence of previously unrecognized tectonic effects and their implications for the interpretation of hominin habitats and land use. In parts of the East African Rift, reconstruction is more difficult because of dramatic changes since the time of hominin occupation, while fossils are often found in places where activity has now almost ceased. However, we show that original, dynamic landscape features can be assessed by analogy with parts of the Rift that are currently active and indicate how this approach can complement other sources of information to add new insights and pose new questions for future investigation of hominin land use and habitats. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Observation of radioactive iodine ({sup 131}I, {sup 129}I) in cropland soil after the Fukushima nuclear accident

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fujiwara, Hideshi, E-mail: hfuji@affrc.go.jp

2016-10-01

During the early stages of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the temporal variations of {sup 131}I deposited on the ground and of {sup 131}I accumulated in cropland soil were monitored at a fixed location in Japan. Moreover, concentrations of long-lived radioactive iodine ({sup 129}I) in atmospheric deposits and soil were measured to examine the feasibility of retrospectively reconstructing {sup 131}I levels from the levels of accident-derived {sup 129}I. The exceptionally high levels of {sup 131}I in deposits and soil were attributed to rainfall-related deposition of radionuclides. In the crop field studied, the losses of deposited {sup 131}I and {sup 129}I due to volatilization were small. The atomic ratio {sup 129}I/{sup 131}I in the topsoil corresponded to the same ratio in deposits. The {sup 131}I concentrations measured in the topsoil were very consistent with the {sup 131}I concentrations reconstructed from the {sup 129}I concentrations in the soil. - Highlights: • A high level of {sup 131}I contamination occurs through rainfall-related deposition. • Only a small loss of deposited radioactive iodine occurs via volatilization. • The {sup 129}I/{sup 131}I ratio in soil corresponds to the ratio in atmospheric deposit. • The feasibility of retrospectively reconstructing {sup 131}I is confirmed.

The biotic sample bank of Chernobyl nuclear accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Yu; Min Rui; Cai Jianming

2006-01-01

Objective: To built a simple and easy biologic sample bank from irradiated people in nuclear accident, for the long time research of biological effect of low dose ionization radiation on people. Methods: The blood sample is fixed on a piece of filter paper rand sealed up in plastic bottle for keeping, blood sample scribble on glass lice, fixed and dyed as routine clinic examination, and still, reserve a slice of hair of the examined people. Results: Having built a biologic sample bank which from 1162 human body. The samples are come from 958 liquidators of Chernobyl nuclear accident, 46 people in other nuclear accident and 158 people as control groups. It is also having much information details. Conclusions: If the biologic sample bank is combined with the modern bimolecular technique, maybe have much meaningful for the theory and practice of radiobiology. (authors)

Proposal strategy and policy on nuclear safety for no-more severe accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2013-01-01

Following the outspoken advice saying 'scientists and engineers concerning with nuclear power promotion and safety should be responsible for clarifying how preventable or what measures should be needed to prevent severe accidents occurring at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants (NPPs)', committee on prevention of severe accidents at NPPs was established by relevant nuclear scientists and engineers involved so as to discuss basic issues to be solved from scientific and technical viewpoints. Based on the review of 'defense in depth' concept and accident analysis at Fukushima nuclear accident, four major proposals and six supplements to be established were identified such as: (1) finding mechanism of beyond imagination events for natural disaster, terrorism, and internal events, (2) reform of comprehensive safety standards and guidelines with performance basis easy to reflect latest knowledge and technology as 'back-fitting', (3) severe accidents measures, their validation, and drilling on accident management to advance procedures and develop human resources, and (4) risk communications and public disclosure of information. This article described backgrounds of committee's proposals on nuclear safety for no-more severe accidents. (T. Tanaka)

Use of PSA and severe accident assessment results for the accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, S. H.; Kim, H. G.; Jang, H. S.; Moon, S. K.; Park, J. U.

1993-12-01

The objectives for this study are to investigate the basic principle or methodology which is applicable to accident management, by using the results of PSA and severe accident research, and also facilitate the preparation of accidents management program in the future. This study was performed as follows: derivation of measures for core damage prevention, derivation of measures for accident mitigation, application of computerized tool to assess severe accident management

Use of PSA and severe accident assessment results for the accident management

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jang, S H; Kim, H G; Jang, H S; Moon, S K; Park, J U [Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

1993-12-15

The objectives for this study are to investigate the basic principle or methodology which is applicable to accident management, by using the results of PSA and severe accident research, and also facilitate the preparation of accidents management program in the future. This study was performed as follows: derivation of measures for core damage prevention, derivation of measures for accident mitigation, application of computerized tool to assess severe accident management.

Causal factors in accidents of high-speed craft and conventional ocean-going vessels

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antao, Pedro; Guedes Soares, C.

2008-01-01

An analysis of 40 ocean-going commercial vessel accidents is compared with the study of a similar number of high-speed crafts (HSCs) accidents, using in both cases a methodology that highlights the sequence of events leading to the accident and identifies the associated latent or causal factors. The main objective of this study was to identify and understand the difference in the pattern of causal factors associated with HSC accidents, as compared with the more traditional ocean-going ships. From the analysis one can see that the HSC accidents are mainly related to bridge personnel and operations, where the human element is the key factor identified as being responsible for the majority of the accidents. When compared with ocean-going commercial vessels, it is clear that navigational equipment and procedures have a larger preponderance in terms of the occurrence of accidents of HSC and particular attention should be given to these issues

[Labor accidents involving the eyes: assessment of occupational risks involving nursing workers].

Science.gov (United States)

de Almeida, Cristiana Brasil; Pagliuca, Lorita Marlena Freitag; Leite, Ana Lourdes Almeida e Silva

2005-01-01

The study aimed at identifying nursing workers who were victims of eye accidents and the type of accident; describing the measures taken and proposing Health Education methods. A descriptive and exploratory study was carried out at a public maternity hospital from September 2002 to January 2003. Data were collected through direct observation of the environment and interviews with workers. Subjects were ten professionals (one nurse, two technicians and seven nursing auxiliaries) who were victims of work accidents involving the eye. The accidents were grouped according to the type of material that caused the trauma: chemical substances (4), medication (3), mechanical trauma (1), scalp (1) and urine (1). The results reveal that hospital workers are vulnerable to labor accidents because the environment presents biological, chemical and physical risks. An important step to prevent the occurrence of new accidents would be the prevention of human mistakes through permanent training and the use of protection glasses.

Recommendations for prevention of radiation accident in industrial gammagraphy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Souza, L.S.; Silva, F.C.A. da

2017-01-01

Industrial Gammagraphy plays an important role in the quality control of various materials and components. It is classified by the International Atomic Energy Agency - IAEA as Category 2, due to its radiation risk caused by the use of high activity radioactive sources. This risk is based on the harmful consequences of human health, described in some accidents in the world, due to failures. In 2012, the 'Brazilian National Workshop on Accident Prevention in Industrial Gammagraphy' was carried out by DIAPI/CNEN, with the objective of disseminating knowledge about radiation accidents. At the time, the IRD/CNEN-RJ carried out a survey with the 75 participants using a form with 22 recommendations to prevent radiological accidents, in order to select the 10 most voted. A statistical study, using the 'Frequency Distribution' method, was performed to define 10 recommendations. The percentage and vote results were obtained by category of the participants and the 10 most important recommendations were defined to prevent radiation accidents. The recommendation that came in first place was 'Always use an individual monitor with alarm during all work'

[Accidents and injuries at work].

Science.gov (United States)

Standke, W

2014-06-01

In the case of an accident at work, the person concerned is insured by law according to the guidelines of the Sozialgesetzbuch VII as far as the injuries have been caused by this accident. The most important source of information on the incident in question is the accident report that has to be sent to the responsible institution for statutory accident insurance and prevention by the employer, if the accident of the injured person is fatal or leads to an incapacity to work for more than 3 days (= reportable accident). Data concerning accidents like these are sent to the Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung (DGUV) as part of a random sample survey by the institutions for statutory accident insurance and prevention and are analyzed statistically. Thus the key issues of accidents can be established and used for effective prevention. Although the success of effective accident prevention is undisputed, there were still 919,025 occupational accidents in 2011, with clear gender-related differences. Most occupational accidents involve the upper and lower extremities. Accidents are analyzed comprehensively and the results are published and made available to all interested parties in an effort to improve public awareness of possible accidents. Apart from reportable accidents, data on the new occupational accident pensions are also gathered and analyzed statistically. Thus, additional information is gained on accidents with extremely serious consequences and partly permanent injuries for the accident victims.

Severe accident analysis methodology in support of accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boesmans, B.; Auglaire, M.; Snoeck, J.

1997-01-01

The author addresses the implementation at BELGATOM of a generic severe accident analysis methodology, which is intended to support strategic decisions and to provide quantitative information in support of severe accident management. The analysis methodology is based on a combination of severe accident code calculations, generic phenomenological information (experimental evidence from various test facilities regarding issues beyond present code capabilities) and detailed plant-specific technical information

Comprehensive Reconstruction and Visualization of Non-Coding Regulatory Networks in Human

Science.gov (United States)

Bonnici, Vincenzo; Russo, Francesco; Bombieri, Nicola; Pulvirenti, Alfredo; Giugno, Rosalba

2014-01-01

Research attention has been powered to understand the functional roles of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Many studies have demonstrated their deregulation in cancer and other human disorders. ncRNAs are also present in extracellular human body fluids such as serum and plasma, giving them a great potential as non-invasive biomarkers. However, non-coding RNAs have been relatively recently discovered and a comprehensive database including all of them is still missing. Reconstructing and visualizing the network of ncRNAs interactions are important steps to understand their regulatory mechanism in complex systems. This work presents ncRNA-DB, a NoSQL database that integrates ncRNAs data interactions from a large number of well established on-line repositories. The interactions involve RNA, DNA, proteins, and diseases. ncRNA-DB is available at http://ncrnadb.scienze.univr.it/ncrnadb/. It is equipped with three interfaces: web based, command-line, and a Cytoscape app called ncINetView. By accessing only one resource, users can search for ncRNAs and their interactions, build a network annotated with all known ncRNAs and associated diseases, and use all visual and mining features available in Cytoscape. PMID:25540777

Comprehensive reconstruction and visualization of non-coding regulatory networks in human.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonnici, Vincenzo; Russo, Francesco; Bombieri, Nicola; Pulvirenti, Alfredo; Giugno, Rosalba

2014-01-01

Research attention has been powered to understand the functional roles of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Many studies have demonstrated their deregulation in cancer and other human disorders. ncRNAs are also present in extracellular human body fluids such as serum and plasma, giving them a great potential as non-invasive biomarkers. However, non-coding RNAs have been relatively recently discovered and a comprehensive database including all of them is still missing. Reconstructing and visualizing the network of ncRNAs interactions are important steps to understand their regulatory mechanism in complex systems. This work presents ncRNA-DB, a NoSQL database that integrates ncRNAs data interactions from a large number of well established on-line repositories. The interactions involve RNA, DNA, proteins, and diseases. ncRNA-DB is available at http://ncrnadb.scienze.univr.it/ncrnadb/. It is equipped with three interfaces: web based, command-line, and a Cytoscape app called ncINetView. By accessing only one resource, users can search for ncRNAs and their interactions, build a network annotated with all known ncRNAs and associated diseases, and use all visual and mining features available in Cytoscape.

Opportunities for international cooperation in nuclear accident preparedness and management: Procedural and organizational measures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lathrop, J.

1989-01-01

In this paper we address a difficult problem: How can we create and maintain preparedness for nuclear accidents? Our research has shown that this can be broken down into two questions: (1) How can we maintain the resources and expertise necessary to manage an accident once it occurs? and (2) How can we develop plans that will help in actually managing an accident once it occurs? It is apparently beyond the means of ordinary human organizations to maintain the capability to respond to a rare event. (A rare event is defined as something like an accident that only happens once every five years or so, somewhere in the world.) Other more immediate pressures tend to capture the resources that should, in a cost/benefit sense, be devoted to maintaining the capability. This paper demonstrates that some of the important factors behind that phenomenon can be mitigated by an international body that promotes and enforces preparedness. Therefore this problem provides a unique opportunity for international cooperation: an international organization promoting and enforcing preparedness could help save us from our own organizational failings. Developing useful accident management plans can be viewed as a human performance problem. It can be restated: how can we support and off-load the accident managers so that their tasks are more feasible? This question reveals the decision analytic perspective of this paper. That is, we look at the problem managing a nuclear accident by focusing on the decision makers, the accident managers: how do we create a decision frame for the accident managers to best help them manage? The decision frame is outlined and discussed. 9 refs

Road Traffic Accident Analysis of Ajmer City Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Bhalla, P.; Tripathi, S.; Palria, S.

2014-12-01

With advancement in technology, new and sophisticated models of vehicle are available and their numbers are increasing day by day. A traffic accident has multi-facet characteristics associated with it. In India 93% of crashes occur due to Human induced factor (wholly or partly). For proper traffic accident analysis use of GIS technology has become an inevitable tool. The traditional accident database is a summary spreadsheet format using codes and mileposts to denote location, type and severity of accidents. Geo-referenced accident database is location-referenced. It incorporates a GIS graphical interface with the accident information to allow for query searches on various accident attributes. Ajmer city, headquarter of Ajmer district, Rajasthan has been selected as the study area. According to Police records, 1531 accidents occur during 2009-2013. Maximum accident occurs in 2009 and the maximum death in 2013. Cars, jeeps, auto, pickup and tempo are mostly responsible for accidents and that the occurrence of accidents is mostly concentrated between 4PM to 10PM. GIS has proved to be a good tool for analyzing multifaceted nature of accidents. While road safety is a critical issue, yet it is handled in an adhoc manner. This Study is a demonstration of application of GIS for developing an efficient database on road accidents taking Ajmer City as a study. If such type of database is developed for other cities, a proper analysis of accidents can be undertaken and suitable management strategies for traffic regulation can be successfully proposed.

Biomass accident investigations – missed opportunities for learning and accident prevention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hedlund, Frank Huess

2017-01-01

The past decade has seen a major increase in the production of energy from biomass. The growth has been mirrored in an increase of serious biomass related accidents involving fires, gas explosions, combustible dust explosions and the release of toxic gasses. There are indications that the number...... of bioenergy related accidents is growing faster than the energy production. This paper argues that biomass accidents, if properly investigated and lessons shared widely, provide ample opportunities for improving general hazard awareness and safety performance of the biomass industry. The paper examines...... selected serious accidents involving biogas and wood pellets in Denmark and argues that such opportunities for learning were missed because accident investigations were superficial, follow-up incomplete and information sharing absent. In one particularly distressing case, a facility saw a repeat accident...

Community response against the nuclear accident. Confusion in Sweden after the Chernobyl nuclear accident and its features

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sato, Yoshihiro

2014-01-01

The Chernobyl nuclear accident, which occurred in April 1986, became popular in Sweden after two days, and Sweden was hit by a big mess immediately after that. This paper introduces various actions taken in Sweden at that time. The authors analyzed the situation based on the following materials to tell the situation at that time: (1) materials summarized by researchers upon request of the administrative organs of the country, (2) two diaries that were written by Sven Aner, who was a former reporter of a major daily newspaper published after the accident and an activist of antinuclear groups, and Sven Lofvegerg, who handled the accident as a technical officer at Radiation Protection Agency, and (3) newspaper articles at that time. The situations that was revealed after the accident were summarized from the following viewpoints: (1) governmental remarks toward safety standards and effects on residents, and the anxiety of residents, (2) grazing ban on livestock as an important industry and its lifting, (3) correspondence of antinuclear activists, (4) anxiety against the effects of radiation on humans, and counseling on the safety addressed to the Headquarters for Disaster Control, (5) roles of regional radio stations, (6) defects of bureaucracy, (7) criticism against the actions of the Headquarters for Disaster Control, and (8) influence of extreme experts. (A.O.)

Evaluation of major polluting accidents in China-Results and perspectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hou Yu; Zhang Tianzhu

2009-01-01

Lessons learnt from accidents are essential sources for updating state-of-the-art requirements in pollution accident prevention. To improve this input in the People's Republic of China in a systematic way, a database for collecting and evaluating major pollution accidents is being established. This is being done in co-operation with Chinese Society for Environment Sciences and other national Institutions. At the time of writing over 80 major events from 2002-2006 have been collected. In this paper, a summary evaluation on the major polluting events in China from 2002 to 2006 is presented and some basic lessons drawn shown. There is no a systematic pollution accident notification system currently in China. The results from root cause analysis underline the importance of emergency measures, maintenance, human factor issues and the role of safety organization. Chronic pollution, especially water pollution and air pollution should be paid the same attention as the sudden pollution. It is important to keep in mind that collecting information from major accidents represents a small percentage of the actual number of events taking place.

Effect of Meteorological Parameters on Accident Rates in Petrochemical Industries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mansouri, N.; Farsi, E.

2016-01-01

Background and Objective: In this research the effectiveness of weather and climate parameters in incidence of accidents in the petrochemical industry was studied and management strategies to prevent these events have been presented. Method: Two of the petrochemical companies, one of them in Assaluyeh (named Zagros, located in warm climates) and the other one in Tabriz (in cold climates) were selected for pilot study. The required data were collected by questionnaire, interview and walking through under study fields. The analyses of data have been done by Excel, SPSS software and Correlation statistical test. Findings: Climate parameters don’t have a directly impact on the petrochemical occupational accidents and there is no significant relationship between them. Discussion and Conclusion: The role of climatic parameters in the incidence of accidents in the petrochemical industry is indirect. In fact, the thermal stress in the first stage caused unsafe conditions and then unsafe behavior, and finally cause human error and occupational accidents. In this study, appropriate solutions for instance engineering or managerial measures are also suggested in order to prevent accidents and injuries.

[HIV-1 infection after occupational accidents in the State of Amazonas: first reported case].

Science.gov (United States)

Lucena, Noaldo Oliveira de; Pereira, Flávio Ribeiro; Barros, Flávio Silveira de; Silva, Nélson Barbosa da; Alexandre, Márcia Almeida de Araújo; Castilho, Márcia da Costa; Alecrim, Maria das Graças Costa

2011-10-01

The medical care of occupational accidents in Tropical Medicine Foundation Dr. Heitor Dourado (FMT-HVD), involving blood and body fluids, started routinely in 1999. The objective of this report is to emphasize the importance of the measures used for the control of accidents with biological material. This study is carried out after a detailed epidemiological investigation confirmed one case of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seroconversion after an occupational accident involving bodily fluids and sharp instruments.

Management of Radioactive Waste after a Nuclear Power Plant Accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Strand, Per; Laurent, Gerard; Rindo, Hiroshi; Georges, Christine; Ito, Eiichiro; Yamada, Norikazu; Iablokov, Iuri; Kilochytska, Tatiana; Jefferies, Nick; Byrne, Jim; Siemann, Michael; Koganeya, Toshiyuki; Aoki, Hiroomi

2016-01-01

The NEA Expert Group on Fukushima Waste Management and Decommissioning R and D (EGFWMD) was established in 2014 to offer advice to the authorities in Japan on the management of large quantities of on-site waste with complex properties and to share experiences with the international community and NEA member countries on ongoing work at the Fukushima Daiichi site. The group was formed with specialists from around the world who had gained experience in waste management, radiological contamination or decommissioning and waste management R and D after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. This report provides technical opinions and ideas from these experts on post-accident waste management and R and D at the Fukushima Daiichi site, as well as information on decommissioning challenges. Chapter 1 provides general descriptions and a short introduction to nuclear accidents or radiological contaminations; for instance the Chernobyl NPP accident, the Three Mile Island Unit 2 accident and the Windscale fire accident. Chapter 2 provides experiences on regulator-implementer interaction in both normal and abnormal situations, including after a nuclear accident. Chapter 3 provides experiences on stakeholder involvement after accidents. These two chapters focus on human aspects after an accident and provide recommendations on how to improve communication between stakeholders so as to resolve issues arising after unexpected nuclear accidents. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 provide information on technical issues related to waste management after accidents. Chapter 4 focuses on the physical and chemical nature of the waste, Chapter 5 on radiological characterisation, and Chapter 6 on waste classification and categorisation. The persons involved in waste management after an accident should address these issues as soon as possible after the accident. Chapters 7 and 8 also focus on technical issues but with a long-term perspective of the waste direction in the future. Chapter 7 relates

Forensic Facial Reconstruction: The Final Frontier.

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Sonia; Gupta, Vineeta; Vij, Hitesh; Vij, Ruchieka; Tyagi, Nutan

2015-09-01

Forensic facial reconstruction can be used to identify unknown human remains when other techniques fail. Through this article, we attempt to review the different methods of facial reconstruction reported in literature. There are several techniques of doing facial reconstruction, which vary from two dimensional drawings to three dimensional clay models. With the advancement in 3D technology, a rapid, efficient and cost effective computerized 3D forensic facial reconstruction method has been developed which has brought down the degree of error previously encountered. There are several methods of manual facial reconstruction but the combination Manchester method has been reported to be the best and most accurate method for the positive recognition of an individual. Recognition allows the involved government agencies to make a list of suspected victims'. This list can then be narrowed down and a positive identification may be given by the more conventional method of forensic medicine. Facial reconstruction allows visual identification by the individual's family and associates to become easy and more definite.

Database of meteorological and radiation measurements made in Belarus during the first three months following the Chernobyl accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Drozdovitch, Vladimir; Zhukova, Olga; Germenchuk, Maria; Khrutchinsky, Arkady; Kukhta, Tatiana; Luckyanov, Nickolas; Minenko, Victor; Podgaiskaya, Marina; Savkin, Mikhail; Vakulovsky, Sergey; Voillequé, Paul; Bouville, André

2013-01-01

Results of all available meteorological and radiation measurements that were performed in Belarus during the first three months after the Chernobyl accident were collected from various sources and incorporated into a single database. Meteorological information such as precipitation, wind speed and direction, and temperature in localities were obtained from meteorological station facilities. Radiation measurements include gamma-exposure rate in air, daily fallout, concentration of different radionuclides in soil, grass, cow's milk and water as well as total beta-activity in cow's milk. Considerable efforts were made to evaluate the reliability of the measurements that were collected. The electronic database can be searched according to type of measurement, date, and location. The main purpose of the database is to provide reliable data that can be used in the reconstruction of thyroid doses resulting from the Chernobyl accident. - Highlights: ► Meteorological and radiation measurements done after the Chernobyl accident in Belarus were collected. ► Data were verified and incorporated into a single database. ► Results of this study is being used to improve the thyroid dose estimates after the Chernobyl accident.

[Use and versatility of titanium for the reconstruction of the thoracic wall].

Science.gov (United States)

Córcoles Padilla, Juan Manuel; Bolufer Nadal, Sergio; Kurowski, Krzysztof; Gálvez Muñoz, Carlos; Rodriguez Paniagua, José Manuel

2014-02-01

Chest wall deformities/defects and chest wall resections, as well as complex rib fractures require reconstruction with various prosthetic materials to ensure the basic functions of the chest wall. Titanium provides many features that make it an ideal material for this surgery. The aim is to present our initial results with this material in several diseases. From 2008 to 2012, 14 patients were operated on and titanium was used for reconstruction of the chest wall. A total of 7 patients had chest wall tumors, 2 with sternal resection, 4 patients with chest wall deformities/defects and 3 patients with severe rib injury due to traffic accident. The reconstruction was successful in all cases, with early extubation without detecting problems in the functionality of the chest wall at a respiratory level. Patients with chest wall tumors including sternal resections were extubated in the operating room as well as the chest wall deformities. Chest trauma cases were extubated within 24h from internal rib fixation. There were no complications related to the material used and the method of implementation. Titanium is an ideal material for reconstruction of the chest wall in several clinical situations allowing for great versatility and adaptability in different chest wall reconstructions. Copyright © 2013 AEC. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Detection and analysis of accident black spots with even small accident figures.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oppe, S.

1982-01-01

Accident black spots are usually defined as road locations with high accident potentials. In order to detect such hazardous locations we have to know the probability of an accident for a traffic situation of some kind, or the mean number of accidents for some unit of time. In almost all procedures

Regulation Plans on Severe Accidents developed by KINS Severe Accident Regulation Preparation TFT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Kyun Tae; Chung, Ku Young; Na, Han Bee

2016-01-01

Some nuclear power plants in Fukushima Daiichi site had lost their emergency reactor cooling function for long-time so the fuels inside the reactors were molten, and the integrity of containment was damaged. Therefore, large amount of radioactive material was released to environment. Because the social and economic effects of severe accidents are enormous, Korean Government already issued 'Severe Accident Policy' in 2001 which requires nuclear power plant operators to set up 'Quantitative Safety Goal', to do 'Probabilistic Safety Analysis', to install 'Severe Accident Countermeasures' and to make 'Severe Accident Management Plan'. After the Fukushima disaster, a Special Safety Inspection was performed for all operating nuclear power plants of Korea. The inspection team from industry, academia, and research institutes assessed Korean NPPs capabilities to cope with or respond to severe accidents and emergency situation caused by natural disasters such as a large earthquake or tsunami. As a result of the special inspection, about 50 action items were identified to increase the capability to cope with natural disaster and severe accidents. Nuclear Safety Act has been amended to require NPP operators to submit Accident Management Plant as part of operating license application. The KINS Severe Accident Regulation Preparation TFT had first investigated oversea severe accident regulation trend before and after the Fukushima accident. Then, the TFT has developed regulation draft for severe accidents such as Severe accident Management Plans, the required design features for new NPPs to prevent severe accident against multiple failures and beyond-design external events, countermeasures to mitigate severe accident and to keep the integrity of containment, and assessment methodology on safety assessment plan and probabilistic safety assessment

Underreporting of maritime accidents to vessel accident databases.

Science.gov (United States)

Hassel, Martin; Asbjørnslett, Bjørn Egil; Hole, Lars Petter

2011-11-01

Underreporting of maritime accidents is a problem not only for authorities trying to improve maritime safety through legislation, but also to risk management companies and other entities using maritime casualty statistics in risk and accident analysis. This study collected and compared casualty data from 01.01.2005 to 31.12.2009, from IHS Fairplay and the maritime authorities from a set of nations. The data was compared to find common records, and estimation of the true number of occurred accidents was performed using conditional probability given positive dependency between data sources, several variations of the capture-recapture method, calculation of best case scenario assuming perfect reporting, and scaling up a subset of casualty information from a marine insurance statistics database. The estimated upper limit reporting performance for the selected flag states ranged from 14% to 74%, while the corresponding estimated coverage of IHS Fairplay ranges from 4% to 62%. On average the study results document that the number of unreported accidents makes up roughly 50% of all occurred accidents. Even in a best case scenario, only a few flag states come close to perfect reporting (94%). The considerable scope of underreporting uncovered in the study, indicates that users of statistical vessel accident data should assume a certain degree of underreporting, and adjust their analyses accordingly. Whether to use correction factors, a safety margin, or rely on expert judgment, should be decided on a case by case basis. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A case study of electrostatic accidents in the process of oil-gas storage and transportation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu, Yuqin; Liu, Jinyu; Gao, Jianshen; Wang, Diansheng

2013-01-01

Ninety nine electrostatic accidents were reviewed, based on information collected from published literature. All the accidents over the last 30 years occurred during the process of oil-gas storage and transportation. Statistical analysis of these accidents was performed based on the type of complex conditions where accidents occurred, type of tanks and contents, and type of accidents. It is shown that about 85% of the accidents occurred in tank farms, gas stations or petroleum refineries, and 96% of the accidents included fire or explosion. The fishbone diagram was used to summarize the effects and the causes of the effects. The results show that three major reasons were responsible for accidents, including improper operation during loading and unloading oil, poor grounding and static electricity on human bodies, which accounted for 29%, 24% and 13% of the accidents, respectively. Safety actions are suggested to help operating engineers to handle similar situations in the future.

The psychological results of the consequence of the ChNPP accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salamatov, V.A.; Volodina, I.A.

1992-01-01

The ChNPP accident grought about the following stress reactions among the exposed population registered: psychosomatic reactions (headaches, gastro-intestinal tract disorders pains in the heart etc.), psychoemotional reactions (panic, sleep disturbance, restlessness etc.), behaviour reaction (aggressiveness, apathy) the whole structure of the human psychic is stated to have been affected by the Chernobyl' accident. The changes in the emotion-and-will sphere appear most distinctly. 2 tab

Accident Analysis and Barrier Function (AEB) Method. Manual for Incident Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Svenson, Ola

2000-02-01

The Accident Analysis and Barrier Function (AEB) Method models an accident or incident as a series of interactions between human and technical systems. In the sequence of human and technical errors leading to an accident there is, in principle, a possibility to arrest the development between each two successive errors. This can be done by a barrier function which, for example, can stop an operator from making an error. A barrier function can be performed by one or several barrier function systems. To illustrate, a mechanical system, a computer system or another operator can all perform a given barrier function to stop an operator from making an error. The barrier function analysis consists of analysis of suggested improvements, the effectiveness of the improvements, the costs of implementation, probability of implementation, the cost of maintaining the barrier function, the probability that maintenance will be kept up to standards and the generalizability of the suggested improvement. The AEB method is similar to the US method called HPES, but differs from that method in different ways. To exemplify, the AEB method has more emphasis on technical errors than HPES. In contrast to HPES that describes a series of events, the AEB method models only errors. This gives a more focused analysis making it well suited for checking other HPES-type accident analyses. However, the AEB method is a generic and stand-alone method that has been applied in other fields than nuclear power, such as, in traffic accident analyses

Accident Analysis and Barrier Function (AEB) Method. Manual for Incident Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Svenson, Ola [Stockholm Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Psychology

2000-02-01

The Accident Analysis and Barrier Function (AEB) Method models an accident or incident as a series of interactions between human and technical systems. In the sequence of human and technical errors leading to an accident there is, in principle, a possibility to arrest the development between each two successive errors. This can be done by a barrier function which, for example, can stop an operator from making an error. A barrier function can be performed by one or several barrier function systems. To illustrate, a mechanical system, a computer system or another operator can all perform a given barrier function to stop an operator from making an error. The barrier function analysis consists of analysis of suggested improvements, the effectiveness of the improvements, the costs of implementation, probability of implementation, the cost of maintaining the barrier function, the probability that maintenance will be kept up to standards and the generalizability of the suggested improvement. The AEB method is similar to the US method called HPES, but differs from that method in different ways. To exemplify, the AEB method has more emphasis on technical errors than HPES. In contrast to HPES that describes a series of events, the AEB method models only errors. This gives a more focused analysis making it well suited for checking other HPES-type accident analyses. However, the AEB method is a generic and stand-alone method that has been applied in other fields than nuclear power, such as, in traffic accident analyses.

Human errors, countermeasures for their prevention and evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kohda, Takehisa; Inoue, Koichi

1992-01-01

The accidents originated in human errors have occurred as ever in recent large accidents such as the TMI accident and the Chernobyl accident. The proportion of the accidents originated in human errors is unexpectedly high, therefore, the reliability and safety of hardware are improved hereafter, but the improvement of human reliability cannot be expected. Human errors arise by the difference between the function required for men and the function actually accomplished by men, and the results exert some adverse effect to systems. Human errors are classified into design error, manufacture error, operation error, maintenance error, checkup error and general handling error. In terms of behavior, human errors are classified into forget to do, fail to do, do that must not be done, mistake in order and do at improper time. The factors in human error occurrence are circumstantial factor, personal factor and stress factor. As the method of analyzing and evaluating human errors, system engineering method such as probabilistic risk assessment is used. The technique for human error rate prediction, the method for human cognitive reliability, confusion matrix and SLIM-MAUD are also used. (K.I.)

Regulation Plans on Severe Accidents developed by KINS Severe Accident Regulation Preparation TFT

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Kyun Tae; Chung, Ku Young; Na, Han Bee [KINS, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

Some nuclear power plants in Fukushima Daiichi site had lost their emergency reactor cooling function for long-time so the fuels inside the reactors were molten, and the integrity of containment was damaged. Therefore, large amount of radioactive material was released to environment. Because the social and economic effects of severe accidents are enormous, Korean Government already issued 'Severe Accident Policy' in 2001 which requires nuclear power plant operators to set up 'Quantitative Safety Goal', to do 'Probabilistic Safety Analysis', to install 'Severe Accident Countermeasures' and to make 'Severe Accident Management Plan'. After the Fukushima disaster, a Special Safety Inspection was performed for all operating nuclear power plants of Korea. The inspection team from industry, academia, and research institutes assessed Korean NPPs capabilities to cope with or respond to severe accidents and emergency situation caused by natural disasters such as a large earthquake or tsunami. As a result of the special inspection, about 50 action items were identified to increase the capability to cope with natural disaster and severe accidents. Nuclear Safety Act has been amended to require NPP operators to submit Accident Management Plant as part of operating license application. The KINS Severe Accident Regulation Preparation TFT had first investigated oversea severe accident regulation trend before and after the Fukushima accident. Then, the TFT has developed regulation draft for severe accidents such as Severe accident Management Plans, the required design features for new NPPs to prevent severe accident against multiple failures and beyond-design external events, countermeasures to mitigate severe accident and to keep the integrity of containment, and assessment methodology on safety assessment plan and probabilistic safety assessment.

Specific features of RBMK severe accidents progression and approach to the accident management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vasilevskij, V.P.; Nikitin, Yu.M.; Petrov, A.A.; Potapov, A.A.; Cherkashov, Yu.M.

2001-01-01

Fundamental construction features of the LWGR facilities (absence of common external containment shell, disintegrated circulation circuit and multichannel reactor core, positive vapor reactivity coefficient, high mass of thermally capacious graphite moderator) predetermining development of assumed heavy non-projected accidents and handling them are treated. Rating the categories of the reactor core damages for non-projected accidents and accident types producing specific grope of damages is given. Passing standard non-projected accidents, possible methods of attack accident consequences, as well as methods of calculated analysis of non-projected accidents are demonstrated [ru

Large Break LOCA Accident Management Strategies for Accidents With Large Containment Leaks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sdouz, Gert

2006-01-01

The goal of this work is the investigation of the influence of different accident management strategies on the thermal-hydraulics in the containment during a Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident with a large containment leak from the beginning of the accident. The increasing relevance of terrorism suggests a closer look at this kind of severe accidents. Normally the course of severe accidents and their associated phenomena are investigated with the assumption of an intact containment from the beginning of the accident. This intact containment has the ability to retain a large part of the radioactive inventory. In these cases there is only a release via a very small leakage due to the un-tightness of the containment up to cavity bottom melt through. This paper represents the last part of a comprehensive study on the influence of accident management strategies on the source term of VVER-1000 reactors. Basically two different accident sequences were investigated: the 'Station Blackout'- sequence and the 'Large Break LOCA'. In a first step the source term calculations were performed assuming an intact containment from the beginning of the accident and no accident management action. In a further step the influence of different accident management strategies was studied. The last part of the project was a repetition of the calculations with the assumption of a damaged containment from the beginning of the accident. This paper concentrates on the last step in the case of a Large Break LOCA. To be able to compare the results with calculations performed years ago the calculations were performed using the Source Term Code Package (STCP), hydrogen explosions are not considered. In this study four different scenarios have been investigated. The main parameter was the switch on time of the spray systems. One of the results is the influence of different accident management strategies on the source term. In the comparison with the sequence with intact containment it was

SEVERE ACCIDENT ISSUES RAISED BY THE FUKUSHIMA ACCIDENT AND IMPROVEMENTS SUGGESTED

OpenAIRE

SONG, JIN HO; KIM, TAE WOON

2014-01-01

This paper revisits the Fukushima accident to draw lessons in the aspect of nuclear safety considering the fact that the Fukushima accident resulted in core damage for three nuclear power plants simultaneously and that there is a high possibility of a failure of the integrity of reactor vessel and primary containment vessel. A brief review on the accident progression at Fukushima nuclear power plants is discussed to highlight the nature and characteristic of the event. As the severe accide...

Industrial Safety and Accidents Prevention

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sajjad Akbar

2006-01-01

Accident Hazards, dangers, losses and risk are what we would to like to eliminate, minimize or avoid in industry. Modern industries have created many opportunities for these against which man's primitive instincts offer no protection. In today's complex industrial environment safety has become major preoccupation, especially after the realization that there is a clear economic incentive to do so. Industrial hazards may cause by human error or by physical or mechanical malfunction, it is very often possible to eliminate the worst consequences of human error by engineering modification. But the modification also needs checking very thoroughly to ensue that it has not introduced some new and unsuspected hazard. (author)

Limitations of systemic accident analysis methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Casandra Venera BALAN

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In terms of system theory, the description of complex accidents is not limited to the analysis of the sequence of events / individual conditions, but highlights nonlinear functional characteristics and frames human or technical performance in relation to normal functioning of the system, in safety conditions. Thus, the research of the system entities as a whole is no longer an abstraction of a concrete situation, but an exceeding of the theoretical limits set by analysis based on linear methods. Despite the issues outlined above, the hypothesis that there isn’t a complete method for accident analysis is supported by the nonlinearity of the considered function or restrictions, imposing a broad vision of the elements introduced in the analysis, so it can identify elements corresponding to nominal parameters or trigger factors.

Bipolar fracture dislocation of clavicle: A report of osteosynthesis and early soft tissue reconstruction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renaldi Prasetia

Full Text Available Introduction: Bipolar dislocation of the clavicle, also called bifocal or pan-articular dislocation or floating clavicle, is an uncommon traumatic injury. The injury of this case is also concomitant with distal third clavicle and coracoid fracture. This article aimed to report the experience of performing osteosynthesis and early soft tissue reconstruction on these injuries. Case report: We reported a case of bipolar clavicle fracture-dislocation in concomitant with coracoid fracture in a man, aged 32 years old, successfully treated 24 days after accident by fixation of both fractures and early simultaneous reconstruction of sternoclavicular- acromioclavicular-coracoclavicular joints. Discussion: These injuries are rare and capable of causing many complications if they are treated improperly. It is compulsory to carefully assess any fractured clavicle along its whole length, both clinically and radiologically. Various options, from non-operative to operative, have been reported to manage such of these cases. Early bony fixation and soft tissue reconstruction can correct the alignment of clavicle and recover the function of sterno-clavicular and acromio-clavicular- joints promptly. Conclusion: Fracture osteosynthesis and early soft tissue reconstruction can be regarded as an option treatment for bipolar fracture-dislocation of the clavicle to facilitate prompt treatment and early rehabilitation. Keywords: Bipolar dislocation, Floating clavicle, Early reconstruction, Soft tissue reconstruction

Terrain Classification of Norwegian Slab Avalanche Accidents

Science.gov (United States)

Hallandvik, Linda; Aadland, Eivind; Vikene, Odd Lennart

2016-01-01

It is difficult to rely on snow conditions, weather, and human factors when making judgments about avalanche risk because these variables are dynamic and complex; terrain, however, is more easily observed and interpreted. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate (1) the type of terrain in which historical fatal snow avalanche accidents in Norway…

Nuclear accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-01-01

On 27 May 1986 the Norwegian government appointed an inter-ministerial committee of senior officials to prepare a report on experiences in connection with the Chernobyl accident. The present second part of the committee's report describes proposals for measures to prevent and deal with similar accidents in the future. The committee's evaluations and proposals are grouped into four main sections: Safety and risk at nuclear power plants; the Norwegian contingency organization for dealing with nuclear accidents; compensation issues; and international cooperation

The program of international intercomparison of accident dosimetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2002-06-01

The French institute of radioprotection and nuclear safety (IRSN) has carried out in June 2002 an international intercomparison program for the testing of the physical and biological accident dosimetry techniques. The intercomparison is jointly organized by the IRSN and the OECD-NEA with the sustain of the European commission and the collaboration of the CEA centre of Valduc (France). About 30 countries have participated to this program. Each country has supplied its own dosimeters and biological samples which have been irradiated using the Silene reactor of CEA-Valduc or a 60 Co source. These experiments allow to test the new dosimetric techniques that have been developed since the previous intercomparison program (1993) and to confirm or improve the performances of older techniques. Aside from the intercomparison exercise, this report makes a status of the known radiological accidents and of the effects of high doses of ionizing radiations on human health (symptoms, therapeutics). It explains the phenomenology of criticality accidents, the prevention means, and the history of such accidents up to the Tokai-Mura one in 1999. Finally, the dosimetry of criticality is presented with its physical and biological techniques. (J.S.)

Effectiveness of electronic stability control on single-vehicle accidents.

Science.gov (United States)

Lyckegaard, Allan; Hels, Tove; Bernhoft, Inger Marie

2015-01-01

This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of electronic stability control (ESC) on single-vehicle injury accidents while controlling for a number of confounders influencing the accident risk. Using police-registered injury accidents from 2004 to 2011 in Denmark with cars manufactured in the period 1998 to 2011 and the principle of induced exposure, 2 measures of the effectiveness of ESC were calculated: The crude odds ratio and the adjusted odds ratio, the latter by means of logistic regression. The logistic regression controlled for a number of confounding factors, of which the following were significant. For the driver: Age, gender, driving experience, valid driving license, and seat belt use. For the vehicle: Year of registration, weight, and ESC. For the accident surroundings: Visibility, light, and location. Finally, for the road: Speed limit, surface, and section characteristics. The present study calculated the crude odds ratio for ESC-equipped cars of getting in a single-vehicle injury accident as 0.40 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.34-0.47) and the adjusted odds ratio as 0.69 (95% CI, 0.54-0.88). No difference was found in the effectiveness of ESC across the injury severity categories (slight, severe, and fatal). In line with previous results, this study concludes that ESC reduces the risk for single-vehicle injury accidents by 31% when controlling for various confounding factors related to the driver, the car, and the accident surroundings. Furthermore, it is concluded that it is important to control for human factors (at a minimum age and gender) in analyses where evaluations of this type are performed.

Lessons learned from accidents in industrial irradiation facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-01-01