Human and Nature‐Caused Hazards: The Affect Heuristic Causes Biased Decisions

People are more concerned about the negative consequences of human hazards compared with natural hazards. Results of four experiments show that the same negative outcome (e.g., number of birds killed by an oil spill) was more negatively evaluated when caused by humans than when caused by nature. Results further show that when identical risk information was provided, participants evaluated nuclear power more negatively compared with solar power. The affect associated with the hazard per se influenced the interpretation of the new information. Furthermore, the affect experienced in the situation fully mediated the evaluation of the negative outcomes of a hazard. People's reliance on the affect heuristic is a challenge for acceptance of cost‐benefit analyses because equally negative outcomes are differently evaluated depending on the cause. Symbolically significant information and the affect evoked by this information may result in biased and riskier decisions.     

Strengthening Safety Compliance in Nuclear Power Operations: A Role‐Based Approach

Safety compliance is of paramount importance in guaranteeing the safe running of nuclear power plants. However, it depends mostly on procedures that do not always involve the safest outcomes. This article introduces an empirical model based on the organizational role theory to analyze the influence of legitimate sources of expectations (procedures formalization and leadership) on workers’ compliance behaviors. The sample was composed of 495 employees from two Spanish nuclear power plants. Structural equation analysis showed that, in spite of some problematic effects of proceduralization (such as role conflict and role ambiguity), procedure formalization along with an empowering leadership style lead to safety compliance by clarifying a worker's role in safety. Implications of these findings for safety research are outlined, as well as their practical implications.     

日本福岛第一核电站核事故对中国核电发展的影响与启示

继＂切尔诺贝利核电事故＂后,日本福岛第一核电站核泄漏事故再次将世界核电发展推向十字路口。客观地分析这次核事故形成的原因与影响,对世界核电能否持续发展有着深远的意义。文章从各国政府、社会组织、公众和核企业的角度,描述了核泄漏事故的影响力度;立足中国核电发展的实际,探讨了从日本福岛核电站核泄漏事故中应获得的启示与借鉴,提出中国核电安全健康发展的保障措施与建议,强调了中国核电发展的必要性和可行性,指出发展核电是我国建设＂两型社会＂的客观需要和优化我国能源产业结构的科学选择。     

国产压水堆核电站核燃料元件经济性的几个问题的思考

文章简介了中核建中核燃料元件有限公司和其燃料元件制造过程中的的经济状况,重点分析了国产核燃料元件经济性及其提高途径,并对敏感的燃料元件价格提出三个值得思考的问题。     

论核电安全监管中的道德风险及其防范

发展核电目前已成为世界各国解决环境和能源问题的重要途径,也是我国能源建设的一项重要政策,但核电发展中也存在着相关核电企业的道德风险问题。文章采用博弈分析法,通过建立核电企业安全监管中道德风险的博弈监督模型,并对其静态混合策略均衡分析和有限次动态博弈分析,得出相应结果,并提出相关建议。     

Rethinking Families and Community: The Color,Class, and Centrality of Extended Kin Ties1

Although a focus on marriage and the nuclear family characterizes much sociological research and social commentary, this article suggests that this focus ignores the familial experiences of many Americans, particularly those on the lower end of the economic spectrum for whom extended kin are central. African Americans and Latinos/as are more involved with kin than whites, but class trumps race in this regard: African Americans, Latinos/as, and whites with fewer economic resources rely more on extended kin than do those more affluent. The emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family may actually promulgate a vision of family life that dismisses the very social resources and community ties that are critical to the survival strategies of those in need. In contrast to those who have argued that marriage is the foundation of the community or even, in that overused phrase, the “basic unit of society,” this article suggests that marriage actually detracts from social ties to broader communities just as an emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family, to the exclusion of the extended family, distorts and reduces the power and reach of social policy.     

朝鲜核试验的国际法解读——以朝鲜核试验违法性分析为视角

朝鲜的三次核试验一直以来遭到国际社会的一致谴责。但是从国际法角度,朝鲜的核试验行为是否违反了国际法,一直以来在国际法学界备受争议。从国际条约、国际习惯、国际法判例等国际法渊源进行探讨,很难确定朝鲜核试验的违法性。但联合国安理会针对朝鲜的核试验行为在《联合国宪章》第7章项下,为"维持国际和平和安全"作出的决议是有法律约束力的,因此,朝鲜有义务遵守安理会的决议,朝鲜的核试验行为是违反国际法的。     

我国核电科学发展的哲学思考

核电的开发和利用存在着潜在的安全、环保等问题,一直以来都备受人们关注。我国应以科学发展观为指导,认真吸取日本福岛核电事故中的深刻教训,正确处理核电建设中好与快的关系、科学技术与文化管理的关系、保守秘密与普及核知识的关系,以及自主创新与国际合作的关系。这是我国核电发展的根本所在。     

Nuclear fetishism,the fear of the ‘Islamic’ bomb and national identity in Iran

The paper's focus is the concurrence in the Islamic Republic of Iran between the state's enrichment of uranium, internationally feared as a potential Islamic atomic bomb, and the identification of the radio-active material by many Iranians as a national cultural object. In contrast to the Islamic virtues imposed by the state that had created an autarkic image of Iranians in the global context, nuclear technology offered them the opportunity to become cosmopolitan consumers of nuclear energy, a global product that also represented the ‘excellence’ of Iranian scientists’ and engineers’ competence. Instrumental in this re-invention of national identity outside the political space was a reified (fetishised) conception of the nuclear object as a utility – nuclear energy. The enhanced utilitarian use of nuclear material mystified (metamorphosed) both the oppressive relation of Iranian people with their Muslim rulers and their incongruous relation with the rest of the world. The mystifying impact of nuclear production on their national and international relations served Iranians to draw on their role as internationally recognised bourgeois agents (burghers) by subsuming (neutralising) their brutalised relation with the Muslim rulers within the instrumental relation of producers/consumers of the nuclear product. Thus, in their exclusive demand for the right to emulate the non-Iranian producers/consumers of nuclear energy as a global product, Iranians acted in their capacity as burghers. A burgher is defined here, following Hegel, as the agent of civil society whose primary concern is to pursue his/her own interest by using the needs of others as the means to satisfy his/her own. The rationality that governs the action by burghers is ‘the suitability of means to their ends’. By adopting the rationality of a burgher, Iranians abandoned their quest for citizenship. The rights of citizen, in contrast with the cosmopolitan right of burgher to emulate producers/consumers, were geared to the exercise of individual autonomy within the political space, as a domain of contested representations. The paper examines the inadequate mediation of modern institutions that has historically postponed the nationalisation of Iranian society and has delayed the emergence of the Iranian nation as a political community. Looked at from this standpoint, nuclear production offered to Iranians the opportunity to avoid a hazardous route of taking part in a political construction of Iranian identity by acting as citizens and instead draw on their fragmented bourgeois identity to define the nuclear product as ‘national’. This identification matched their Muslim rulers’ interest to represent the enriched uranium internationally as a national, as opposed to Islamic, achievement without having to face the Iranian nation as a political community. The consequence was the Iranians’ failure to deal with nuclear technology and the question of public safety both as a national and international issue which could only be addressed if Iranians had acted in their capacity as citizens.     

Importance of Transparency and Traceability in Building a Safety Case for High-Level Nuclear Waste Repositories

The complexity of the safety case for a high-level nuclear waste repository makes it imperative that deliberate and significant effort be made to incorporate in it a high level of transparency and traceability. Diverse audiences, from interested members of the public to highly trained subject matter experts, make this task difficult. A systematic study of the meaning of transparency and traceability and the implementation of the associated principles in preparing the safety case is, therefore, required. In this article, we review the existing knowledge and propose topics for further investigation.