Elk decision-making rules are simplified in the presence of wolves

The risk of predation drives many behavioral responses in prey. However, few studies have directly tested whether predation risk alters the way other variables influence prey behavior. Here we use information theory (Akaike’s Information Criterion, AICc) in a novel way to test the hypothesis that the decision-making rules governing elk behavior are simplified by the presence of wolves. With elk habitat use as the dependent variable, we test whether the number of independent variables (i.e., the size of the models) that best predict this behavior differ when wolves are present vs absent. Thus, we use AICc scores simply to determine the number of variables to which elk respond when making decisions. We measured habitat use using 2,288 locations from GPS collars on 14 elk, over two winters (14 elk winters), in the Gallatin Canyon portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We found that the use of three major habitat components (grass, conifer, sage) was sensitive to many variables on days that wolves were locally absent, with the best models (ΔAICc≤2) averaging 7.4 parameters. In contrast, habitat use was sensitive to few variables on days when wolves were present: the best models averaged only 2.5 parameters. Because fewer variables affect elk behavior in the presence of wolves, we conclude that elk use simpler decision-making rules in the presence of wolves. This simplification of decision-making rules implies that predation risk imposes selection pressures that do not allow prey to respond to other pressures in ways that they otherwise would. If the affected processes are important, then this indirect effect of predation is likely to be important.     

Risk taking during parental care: a test of three hypotheses applied to the pied flycatcher

According to life-history theory, there will often be a conflict between investment in current versus future reproduction. If a predator appears during breeding, parents must make a compromise between ensuring the growth and survival of offspring (nest defence, feeding and brooding of young), and reducing the risk of predation to ensure their own survival. We model three hypotheses for the outcome of this conflict which are particularly relevant for altricial birds. They are not mutually exclusive, but focus on different costs and benefits. (1) Parental investment is determined by the parents’ own risk of predation. This hypothesis predicts that a lone parent should take smaller risks than a parent that has a mate. (2) Parental investment is related to the reproductive value of the offspring: Parents are predicted to take greater risks for larger broods, larger-sized or older offspring. (3) Finally, we present the new hypothesis that parental investment is related to the harm that offspring would suffer during a period of no parental care (incubation, brooding, feeding). This hypothesis predicts that parents should take greater risks for younger offspring, or for offspring in poorer condition, because the marginal benefit of parental care is largest in such cases. Hence, one may also expect that lone parents should take greater risks than two parents because their offspring are more in need of care. We tested these hypotheses on the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) by presenting a stuffed predator of the parents (a sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus) close to the nest when parents were feeding the young. Risk taking was measured as the time that elapsed until the first visit to the nest. Most support was found for the ‘‘harm to offspring’’ hypothesis. Previous studies have usually measured the intensity of nest defence against typical nest predators, and have found evidence for the ‘‘reproductive value of offspring’’ hypothesis. However, our model predicts that the importance of the reproductive value of the offspring should decrease relative to the harm that offspring would suffer if they were not cared for when the predator type changes from a nest predator to a predator of adults, and when conditions for breeding turn from good to bad. Received: 13 April 1995/Accepted after revision: 11 March 1996     

Designatable Units for Status Assessment of Endangered Species

Abstract:  Species status assessment and the conservation of biological diversity may require defining units below the species level to portray probabilities of extinction accurately and to help set priorities for conservation efforts. What those units should be has been debated in the scientific literature largely in terms of evolutionarily significant units (ESUs), but this discourse has had little impact on government policy with regard to status assessment. As with species concepts, the variously proposed ESU concepts have not been resolvable into a single approach. The need for a practicable procedure to identify infraspecific entities for status assignment is the motivation behind employing designatable units (DUs). In aid of a policy to prevent elements of biodiversity from becoming extinct or extirpated, DUs are determined during the process of resolving a species' conservation status according to broadly applicable guidelines. The procedure asks whether putative DUs are distinguishable based on a reliably established taxonomy or a well-corroborated phylogeny, compelling evidence of genetic distinction, range disjunction, and/or biogeographic distinction as long as extinction probabilities also differ. The language of the DU approach avoids wording that implies value judgments concerning evolutionary importance or significance. Because species conservation status assessment is not science but, rather, the use of science to further policy, DUs contribute to a precautionary approach to listing whereby status may be assessed even though knowledge of systematic relationships below the species level may be lacking or unresolved. The pragmatic approach of using DUs has been adopted by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada for status assessment of species under the Canadian Species at Risk Act.     

Division of foraging labor in ants can mediate demands for food and safety

Solitary foragers can balance demands for food and safety by varying their relative use of foraging patches and their level of vigilance. Here, we investigate whether colonies of the ant, Formica perpilosa, can balance these demands by dividing labor among workers. We show that foragers collecting nectar in vegetation near their nest are smaller than are those collecting nectar at sites away from the nest. We then use performance tests to show that smaller workers are more likely to succumb to attack from conspecifics but feed on nectar more efficiently than larger workers, suggesting a size-related trade-off between risk susceptibility and harvesting ability. Because foragers that travel away from the nest are probably more likely to encounter ants from neighboring colonies, this trade-off could explain the benefits of dividing foraging labor among workers. In a laboratory experiment, we show that contact with aggressive workers results in an increase in the mean size of recruits to a foraging site: this increase was not the result of more large recruits, but rather because fewer smaller ants traveled to the site. These results suggest that workers particularly susceptible to risk avoid dangerous sites, and suggest that variation in worker size can allow colonies to exploit profitably both hazardous and resource-poor patches.Communicated by L. Sundström     

Women's opinions on the offer and use of maternal serum screening

We studied the opinions and experiences concerning maternal serum screening of two groups of women: (A) women who were not eligible for prenatal diagnosis; and (B) women for whom prenatal diagnosis was available because of advanced maternal age, and who either underwent chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis. Many of the women were in favour of the availability of serum screening and would apply for this test in a future pregnancy. This applied also to many respondents who had previously undergone prenatal diagnosis. Most of these women, however, did not intend to decline diagnostic amniocentesis if the screening results did not indicate an increased risk. The majority of the group of respondents of 36 years and over did not consider it acceptable if age indication was dropped altogether. A system based on serum screening will have other implications than a policy based on age indication, since specific individual risk assessment is perceived as being of more significance than a risk statistically derived from age alone. Serum screening is often seen as a means of reassurance and many women are not aware of the possible drawbacks. As technology becomes increasingly complicated, counselling has to be adjusted correspondingly. Further research is needed to establish whether and how distress can be minimized and well-considered individual choice can be achieved.     

Muhlbauer评分法在输油管道风险评价中的应用及分析

与其它运输方式相比,管道运输在正常运行情况下,其环境污染小。但是,产生事故后其环境风险大。本文利用Muhlbauer评分法对天津-北京航空煤油输送管道进行了风险评价,经过模拟计算后,定量分析了该输油管道的相对风险数,并提出了提高管道运行安全性的措施。评价结果表明:该管道的相对风险数为59,存在一定风险,但风险可接受。相对风险数中可变因素占66.5%,在不增加项目基建投资基础上,通过加强管理等措施,可提高可变因素的指数分值和相对风险数,使管道安全性能提高16.1%。     

The acceptance of personal protective equipment among Hong Kong construction workers: An integration of technology acceptance model and theory of planned behavior with risk perception and safety climate

Introduction: The phenomenon that construction workers do not use personal protective equipment (PPE) is a major reason for the high occurrence frequency of accidents in the construction industry. However, little efforts have been made to quantitatively examine the factors influencing construction workers’ acceptance of PPE. Method: In the current study, a PPE acceptance model for construction workers (PAMCW) was proposed to address the noted need. The PAMCW incorporates the technology acceptance model, theory of planned behavior, risk perception, and safety climate for explaining construction worker acceptance of PPE. 413 construction workers participated in this study to fill out a structured questionnaire. The PAMCW was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results: Results provide evidence of the applicability of the technology acceptance model and theory of planned behavior to the PPE acceptance among construction workers. The positive influence of safety climate and risk perception-severity on attitude toward using PPE was significant. Safety climate positively influences perceived usefulness. Risk perception-worry and unsafe was found to positively affect intention to use PPE. Practical Applications: Practical suggestions for increasing construction workers’ use of PPE are also discussed.     

Insight into the safety distance of ground and underground installations in typical petrochemical plants

Petrochemical plants are continuously turning into large-size corporations, the installations of facilities show a developing trend from ground to underground because of the difference in land using rate. In this regard, the safety distance of petrochemical equipment buried in both ground and underground cases were investigated based on risk assessment. As a case study, gasoline tank and LPG tank set on the ground and underground are singled out to compare the risks involved. The research showed that the setting case of installation had a great influence on safety distance. Two cases have 80% reduction of equivalent safety distance compared with the rest of the cases. It was found that when the gasoline storage tank was placed underground alone, the PLL value decreased by 36.7%. Only LPG tank was placed underground, and the PLL decreased by 6.33%, and the gasoline and LPG storage tanks were placed underground simultaneously, the PLL value declined by 42.3%. Thus, the layout of plants could be further optimized, which can greatly improve the performances of land use efficiency and safety. In addition, this paper, the selection of embedding methods and the sensitivity of underground case to overpressure was resumed from two aspects: soil properties and burial depth. For the soil properties, it was found that the water saturated sandy soil with high air content and the low density unsaturated sandy soil had better effects on weakening overpressure. Such properties are particularly beneficial to reducing the occurrence rate of accidents. In terms of burial depth, it can be observed that as the burial depth was changed from 0.5m to 1.1m, the value of overpressure has dropped dramatically. When the burial depth was 2m, the damage to personnel and buildings has been greatly reduced beyond 2m from the explosion center.     

Performance evaluation of process industries resilience: Risk-based with a network approach

Risk management can be defined as coordinated activities to conduct and control an organization with consideration of risk. Recently, risk management strategies have been developed to change the approach to hazards and risks. Resilience as a safety management theory considers the technical and social aspects of systems simultaneously. Resilience in process industries, as a socio-technical system, has four aspects of early detection, error-tolerant design, flexibility, and recoverability. Meanwhile, process industries' resilience has three phases: avoidance, survival, and recovery, determining the transition between normal state, process upset event, and catastrophic event. There may be various technical and social failures such as regulatory and human or organizational items that can lead to upset or catastrophic events. In the avoidance phase, the upset event is predicted, and thus, the system remains in a normal state. For the survival phase, the system state is assumed to be an upset process event, and the system tries to survive through the unhealthy process conditions or remains in the same state, probably with low performance. In the recovery phase, the system is supposed to be catastrophic, and the emergency barriers are prioritized to show the severity of the consequences and response time, leading to a resumption of a normal state. Therefore, a resilience-based network can be designed for process industries to show its inherent dynamic transition in nature. In this study, network data envelopment analysis (DEA), as a mathematical model, is used to evaluate the relative efficiency of the process industries regarding a network transition approach based on the system's internal structure. First, a resilience-based network is designed to consist of three states of normal, upset, and catastrophic events. Then, the efficiency of each industrial department, which is defined as decision-making units (DMUs), is evaluated using network DEA. As a case study, a refinery that is considered a critical process industry is assessed. Using the proposed model shows the efficient and inefficient DMUs in each of three states of normal, upset, and catastrophic events of the process and the projection onto efficient frontiers. Besides calculating the network efficiency, the performance of each state is extracted to precisely differentiate between DMUs. The results of this study, which is one of the fewest cases in the area of performance evaluation of process industries with a network approach, indicated a robust viewpoint for monitoring and assessment of risks.     

The study of burning behaviors and quantitative risk assessment for 0# diesel oil pool fires

The liquid fuel safety issues on fuel storage, transportation and processing have gained most attention because of the high fire risk. In this paper, some 0# diesel pool fire experiments with different diameters (0.2–1 m) were conducted with initial fuel thicknesses of 2 cm and 4 cm, respectively, to obtain liquid fuel combustion characteristics. Some key parameters including mass burning rate, flame height and the flame radiative heat flux, associated with fire risk, were investigated and determined. Subsequently, a detail quantitative risk assessment framework for 0# diesel pool fire is proposed based on the 0# diesel burning characteristics. In the framework, the probability of personal dead and the facility failure are calculated by the vulnerability models, respectively. In the end, 10 special tank fire scenarios were selected to show the whole risk calculation process. The tank diameter and the distance to pool fires were paid more attention in the cases. The safety distances in the cases are provided for the persons and nearby facilities, respectively. The paper enriches the basic experimental data and the provided framework is useful to the management of 0# diesel tank areas.