Search results for "hazard"
showing 10 items of 1517 documents
Publish-subscribe smartphone sensing platform for the acute phase of a disaster: A framework for emergency management support
2014
The advanced sensors embedded in modern smartphones opens up for novel research opportunities, as for instance manifested in the field of mobile phone sensing. Most notable is perhaps research activities within human activity recognition and context-aware applications. Along a similar vein, the SmartRescue project targets monitoring of both hazard developments as well as tracking of people in a disaster, taking advantage of smartphone sensing, processing and communication capabilities. The goal is to help crisis managers and the public in early hazard detection, hazard prediction, and in the forming of risk minimizing evacuation plans when disaster strikes. In this paper we propose a novel …
Ant colony optimisation for planning safe escape routes
2013
Published version of a chapter from the volume: Recent Trends in Applied Artificial Intelligence. Also available on SpringerLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38577-3_6 An emergency requiring evacuation is a chaotic event filled with uncertainties both for the people affected and rescuers. The evacuees are often left to themselves for navigation to the escape area. The chaotic situation increases when a predefined escape route is blocked by a hazard, and there is a need to re-think which escape route is safest. This paper addresses automatically finding the safest escape route in emergency situations in large buildings or ships with imperfect knowledge of the hazards. The proposed so…
Low back pain, work absenteeism, chronic back disorders, and clinical findings in the low back as predictors of hospitalization due to low back disor…
2005
Study Design. Prospective cohort study. Objective. To study symptoms, chronic disorders, and clinical findings in the low back, and work absenteeism, as predictors of hospitalization. Summary of Background Data. Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors are associated with back-related hospitalization, but the significance in the working normal population of low back symptoms and clinical findings are not known. Methods. The cohort (n = 902) was drawn in 1973 from among employees in the metal industry (n = 2,653). The data were collected by questionnaire and a structured clinical assessment by a physiotherapist. Weight was measured. A sum score of local and radiating low back symptoms (frequency …
Development of analysis tools for social, economic and ecological effects of water reuse
2008
Abstract The full implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC) in Europe will contribute to obtain treated wastewaters of quite high quality that could be reused for certain applications or improved by polishing steps for uses with higher quality requirements. Even though reclaimed water reuse is currently implemented in many European countries, mainly for irrigation, its potential has not yet been exploited in many areas. In fact, a decisive factor to achieve a higher percentage of water reuse is the establishment of effective incentives, which in many instances will be of either an economic or a regulatory nature. The limiting factor for water reuse can in many…
On the hazardous situations due to the presence of HV/MV substations in urban areas
2017
The paper focuses on the hazardous situations that can rise in urban areas in case of earth fault inside a High Voltage/Medium Voltage station. IEEE and IEC/EN Standards and technical documents are examined and discussed, in order to propose some practical guidelines for a safe integration of such installations in contexts characterized by the presence of low voltage systems and not trained persons.
Status of hormones and painkillers in wastewater effluents across several European states-considerations for the EU watch list concerning estradiols …
2016
Present technologies for wastewater treatment do not sufficiently address the increasing pollution situation of receiving water bodies, especially with the growing use of personal care products and pharmaceuticals (PPCP) in the private household and health sector. The relevance of addressing this problem of organic pollutants was taken into account by the Directive 2013/39/EU that introduced (i) the quality evaluation of aquatic compartments, (ii) the polluter pays principle, (iii) the need for innovative and affordable wastewater treatment technologies, and (iv) the identification of pollution causes including a list of principal compounds to be monitored. In addition, a watch list of 10 o…
Analysis of pipeline accidents in the United States from 1968 to 2009
2014
Pipelines are responsible for the transportation of a significant portion of the U.S. energy supply. Unfortunately, pipeline failures are common and the consequences can be catastrophic. Drawing on data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) that covers approximately 40,000 incidents from 1968 to 2009, this paper explores the trends, causes and consequences of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipeline accidents. The analysis indicates that fatalities and injuries from pipeline accidents are generally decreasing over time, while property damage and, in some cases, the numbers of incidents are increasing over time. In five of the ten cases considered in this p…
Risk Assessment of a compound feed process based on HAZOP analysis and linguistic terms
2016
[EN] The size and complexity of industrial plants, along with the characteristics of the products used, require a study, analysis and control of the existing risks in every industrial process. In this paper, a methodology for risk assessment in industrial plants, based on the combination of risks identification through the Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) analysis and the risks evaluation through linguistic variables and fuzzy numbers is applied to a case study consisting on a compound feed plant located in the town of Silla (Valencia, Spain). The results from this study show that the main risk in the compound feed production process is the formation of explosive atmospheres (ATEX). Therefore…
Determining the explosion risk level and the explosion hazard area for a group of natural gas wells
2016
Starting from the fact that the natural gas engineering profession is generally associated with a high occupational risk, the current paper aims to help increase the safety of natural gas wells and reduce the risk of work-related accidents, as well as the occurrence of professional illnesses, by applying an assessment method that has proven its efficiency in other industrial areas in combination with a computer-aided design software. More specifically, the paper focuses on two main research directions: assessing the explosion risk for employees working at natural gas wells and indicating areas with a higher explosion hazard by using a modern software that allows their presentation in 3D. Th…
Stabilization and Solidification Technology Implementation in Latvia: First Studies
2012
Soil and groundwater are environmental compartments that are primarily affected by industrial development with increasing amount of industrial wastes and inadequate dumping of them. A special attention should be paid to heavy metal contamination at least 56 contaminated territories of National priority are known as contaminated with heavy metals in different amount and concentration in Latvia. The stabilization / solidification technology refers to binding of waste contaminants to a more chemically stable form and thus diminishing leaching of contamination. In order to choose the remediation method the pre-investigation in industrial case study area was done in stages: data analysis of prev…