Application of human factors evaluation in engineering design and safe operation of dense phase ethylene treaters

Ethylene treaters are widely used in the petrochemical industry to remove impurities from ethylene feedstock imported from pipeline networks or storage caverns. The safety concerns of dense phase ethylene treaters due to the reactive and highly flammable nature of ethylene are well known and studied. Under certain conditions, ethylene may self-polymerize and decompose violently with heat release. Under other conditions, ethylene will auto-refrigerate, generating cold liquids that may cause potential brittle fracture hazards. Therefore, dense phase ethylene treaters present design challenges with the unique combination of high temperature decomposition and cold temperature brittle fracture hazards.Due to these safety concerns, it is important to select the appropriate engineering design options for dense phase ethylene treaters and the associated regeneration facilities. Totally automated treater regeneration systems add complexity and instrument maintenance requirements while manually operated systems rely heavily on operator training and procedures. Unfortunately, little or no information or design guidance is available from published research findings in the literature on the evaluation and risk assessment of current industrial design options and practices for dense phase ethylene treaters.This paper presents a systematic risk assessment method to evaluate the engineering design and safe operation options for dense phase ethylene treaters. The proposed risk assessment method integrates human factors task analysis into the traditional HAZOP, LOPA and fault tree analysis to allow evaluation of automated, manual and hybrid approaches with a goal of selecting and optimizing design options to ensure plant safety. This approach provides a realistic assessment of the operational risk and allows identification of fit-for-purpose risk reduction. Applying this systematic risk assessment approach, a simpler and more cost effective design solution can be justified, thereby avoiding the need for a high integrity protective system.     

Protection of Antarctic soil environments: A review of the current issues and future challenges for the Environmental Protocol

2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Terrestrial ice-free areas constitute approximately 0.18% of Antarctica, but represent the most biologically active, historically rich, and environmentally sensitive sites. Antarctic soils are easily disturbed and environmental legacies of human activities are scattered across the continent; many are remnants of the 1950s-1980s when environmental protection was less comprehensive than today. Adoption of the Environmental Protocol in 1991 represented an important and proactive shift in Antarctic governance, securing environmental protection as a fundamental tenet of the Treaty System. Twenty five years on standards of environmental management have greatly improved, yet environmental pressures are compounding. Shortcomings in the implementation of the Environmental Protocol exist due to disparities in cultural values, operational realities, and inconsistent environmental impact assessments among governments and National Antarctic Programs. Non-native species management remains underdeveloped; and there is inadequate representation of all biogeographic regions within the Protected Area system; therefore jeopardizing conservation of Antarctic biodiversity and the integrity of the soil environment. Fundamental improvements are required to address the current shortcomings and ensure effective environmental protection for the next 25 years, including: (1) increased multinational and multidisciplinary collaboration to answer targeted research questions addressing contemporary management challenges, (2) effective communication of science to policy makers and environmental managers to inform decision- making, and (3) making the mandate of long-term monitoring of the terrestrial environment a high priority for all governments signatory to the Antarctic Treaty.     

Aluminum interaction with human brain tau protein phosphorylation by various Kinases

Abstract

Phosphorylation is an indispensable process for energy and signal transduction in biological systems. AlCl₃ at 10 nM to 10 uM range activated in‐vitro [γ‐³²P)ATP phosphorylation of the brain (tau) T protein in both normal human or E.coli expressed T forms; in the presence of the kinases P34, PKP, and PKC. However, higher concentrations of ALCl₃ inhibited the T phosphorylation with P34, PKP, and PKC to a maximum at 1 mM level. AlCl₃ at 100 uM to 500 uM range induced non‐enzymatic phosphorylation of T with γ‐ATP, γ‐GTP, and α‐GTP. AlCl₃ activated histone phosphorylation by P34 in a similar pattern. The hyperphosphorylation of T by Al³⁺ was accompanied by molecular shift and mobility retardation in SDS‐PAGE. This may demonstrate the mechanism of the longterm neurological effect of Al³⁺ in human brain leading to the formation of the neurofibrillary tangles related to Alzeheimer's disease.     

Narratives Can Motivate Environmental Action: The Whiskey Creek Ocean Acidification Story

Even when environmental data quantify the risks and benefits of delayed responses to rapid anthropogenic change, institutions rarely respond promptly. We propose that narratives complementing environmental datasets can motivate responsive environmental policy. To explore this idea, we relate a case study in which a narrative of economic loss due to regionally rapid ocean acidification—an anthropogenic change—helped connect knowledge with action. We pose three hypotheses to explain why narratives might be particularly effective in linking science to environmental policy, drawing from the literature of economics, environmental policy, and cognitive psychology. It seems that yet-untold narratives may hold similar potential for strengthening the feedback between environmental data and policy and motivating regional responses to other environmental problems.     

A transportation-location problem model for pedestrian evacuation in chemical industrial parks disasters

A successful emergency management for chemical industrial parks (CIPs) accidents includes the route and shelter selection. Both of them are based on the collection of chemicals, atmosphere, geographic and population databases of CIPs. This decision process can be considered as a kind of transportation-location problem (TLP). In this paper, a conceptual model of emergency decision system for TLP of CIPs has been reported and a new multi-objective TLP model of pedestrian evacuation has also been proposed. The model includes sub-criteria, and the affected areas are categorized into a priority hierarchy based on human vulnerability model (HVM). The model can be used to design shelter places and guide the evacuation of the affected people. Besides, it can maximize the total time satisfaction level of evacuees combined with the routes passable probabilities. Finally, a case study shows that this model is flexible and applicable to various scenarios and risk measures.     

Safety in shipping: the human element

INTRODUCTION: There are numerous diverse papers that have addressed issues within maritime safety; to date there has been no comprehensive review of this literature to aggregate the causal factors within accidents in shipping and surmise current knowledge. METHODS: This paper reviewed the literature on safety in three key areas: common themes of accidents, the influence of human error, and interventions to make shipping safer. The review included 20 studies of seafaring across the following areas: fatigue, stress, health, situation awareness, teamwork, decision-making, communication, automation, and safety culture. RESULTS: The review identifies the relative contributions of individual and organizational factors in shipping accidents, and also presents the methodological issues with previous research. CONCLUSIONS: The paper concludes that monitoring and modifying the human factors issues presented in this paper could contribute to maritime safety performance. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: This review illustrates which human factors issues are prevalent in incidents therefore this gives shipping practitioners a focus for interventions.     

Indoor air quality and academic performance

I examine the effect of school indoor air quality (IAQ) on academic outcomes. I utilize a quasi-natural experiment, in which IAQ-renovations were completed at virtually every school in a single Texas school district at different points in time, combined with a panel of student-level data to control for many confounding factors and thereby uncover the causal effect of IAQ-renovations on academic outcomes. Results indicate that performance on standardized tests significantly improves while attendance is unresponsive to improvements in IAQ. Rough calculations suggest that IAQ-renovations may be a more cost-effective way to improve standardized test scores than class size reductions.     

第一届亚太区安全健康海报、录像带创作比赛即将在港举行我国有关职业安全卫生单位积极报名参赛

第一届亚太区安全健成海报、录像带创作比赛即将在港举行我国有关职业安全卫生单位积极报名参赛第十三届亚太区职业安全健康组织大会及展览会将于１９９７年４月２１日至４月２６日在香港举行，这是香港职业安全健康局首次主办的大型国际性会议，预计将有二千多人参加，此...     

CULTURAL ASPECTS OF WATER RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT PAST,PRESENT, AND FUTURE1

ABSTRACT Attitudes toward the development of the American West have undergone important changes over the past century just as the nature of water resources as factors in development have changed. Viewing these changes processually, stages for water resources definition and use can be identified in the total process of western cultural development. The first stage involves the value of water resource development as a stimulus to population and economic growth in the West. The second stage, still in process', adopts a dominant cultural norm which sees water resource development as inevitable if not necessary to keep up with growth. A third stage to this evolutionary process is incipient. Future cultural values and thinking with respect to water resource development will be to look at development as a means for controlling or managing both the location and quantity of population and economic growth. To this end planners will have to become concerned with the questions of human adaptation. Concern will have to be given to the problems of getting a living which enables individuals to meet the subsistence needs of self and family, to establishing community which provides for cooperation among individuals and the management of conflict, to establishing improved communication which promotes interpersonal interaction, and for fostering innovation which provides the new ideas necessary to adapt to new environmental situations.,