Scheduling Updates of Probabilistic Risk Assessments: The Arkansas Nuclear One-Unit 1 Experience

This paper presents the results of a study that identified how often a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)should be updated to accommodate the changes that take place at nuclear power plants. Based on a 7-year analysis of design and procedural changes at one plant, we consider 5 years to be the maximum interval for updating PRAs. This conclusion is preliminary because it is based on the review of changes that occurred at a single plant, and it addresses only PRAs that involve a Level 1 analysis (i.e., a PRA including calculation of core damage frequency only). Nevertheless, this conclusion indicates that maintaining a useful PRA requires periodic updating efforts. However, the need for this periodic update stems only partly from the number of changes that can be expected to take place at nuclear power plants–changes that individually have only a moderate to minor impact on the PRA, but whose combined impact is substantial and necessitates a PRA update. Additionally, a comparison of two generations of PRAs performed about 5 years apart indicates that PRAs must be periodically updated to reflect the evolution of PRA methods. The most desirable updating interval depends on these two technical considerations as well as the cost of updating the PRA. (Cost considerations, however, were beyond the scope of this study.)     

An algorithm for computing principal points with respect to a loss function in the unidimensional case

In Flury (1990) the k principal points of a random vector X are defned as the points p(1),..., p(k) minimizing EX–p(i)²; i=1,..., k. We extend this concept to that of k principal points with respect to a loss function L, and present an algorithm for their computation in the univariate case.     

Clinical supervision: Its role in “Containing” countertransference responses to a filicidal patient

This paper illustrates the role of supervision in processing countertransference responses with might have disrupted the therapist's empathy with a patient who had killed her child. The clinical material demonstrates how the therapist's responses of initial denial and subsequent disgust and fear were dealt with in supervision. As a result, the treatment process led to genuine, albeit limited, therapeutic change in a patient with severe character pathology.This paper is developed from a presentation of the case of Mrs. Jay at Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, on May 2, 1989.     

Managing Risk as a Duality of Harm and Benefit: A Study of Organizational Risk Objects in the Global Insurance Industry

This study examines how organizations construct and manage risk objects as a duality of harm–benefit within their normal operations. It moves beyond the existing focus on accidents, disasters and crisis. We study the risk‐transfer processes of 35 insurers where they navigate the tension of retaining risk in their insurance portfolio to increase the benefit of making profit and transferring risk to reinsurance to reduce the harm of paying claims. We show that organizations’ constructions of risk are underpinned by everyday risk management practices of centralizing, calculating and diversifying. Through variation in these practices, not all organizations seek balance and we in turn uncover the sensemaking processes of abstracting and localizing that enable organizations to prioritize harm or benefit. This contributes to the risk literature by illuminating the co‐constitutive relationship between risk sensemaking processes and everyday risk management practices. Following the complex linkages involved in the construction of risk objects as sources of harm–benefit, our analysis also contributes to the literature on dualities. It shows that while immediate trade‐offs between harm–benefit occur, prioritizing one element of the duality is ultimately a means for attaining the other. Thus, while initial imbalance is evident, prioritization can be an enabling approach to navigating duality.     

Expanding the Role of Long-Term Care Social Workers: Assessment and Intervention Related to Urinary Incontinence

Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common and stigmatizing problem faced by long-term care (LTC) residents. It is typically addressed by medical professionals, with social work rarely involved. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how social workers can address the psychosocial implications of UI while working with residents and their family members as part of an interdisciplinary team. Using a case example and the NASW objectives for LTC, recommendations on how the role of the LTC social workers can be expanded to better address both the needs of residents, families, and the larger LTC system are provided.     

An Examination of How Supervisors Influence Their Subordinates to Engage in Environmental Behaviors

Employee engagement in environmental behaviors is an important topic in operations management. Drawing upon stakeholder, commitment, and organizational support theories, this study creates and tests an empirical model of how store managers (i.e., supervisors) influence their direct reports (i.e., subordinates) to become engaged in environmental behaviors. Based on a dataset derived from supervisors and their subordinates who are employed at the same grocery store location across a large retail grocery chain, we test our study's nomological model and find support for the linkages proposed. Key research and managerial implications are discussed.     

Insights from the Evaluation of Past Local Area Population Forecasts

Local area population forecasts have a wide variety of uses in the public and private sectors. But not enough is known about the errors of such forecasts, particularly over the longer term (20 years or more). Understanding past errors is valuable for both forecast producers and users. This paper (i) evaluates the forecast accuracy of past local area population forecasts published by Australian State and Territory Governments over the last 30 years and (ii) illustrates the ways in which past error distributions can be employed to quantify the uncertainty of current forecasts. Population forecasts from the past 30 years were sourced from State and Territory Governments. Estimated resident populations to which the projections were compared were created for the geographical regions of the past projections. The key features of past forecast error patterns are described. Forecast errors mostly confirm earlier findings with regard to the relationship between error and length of projection horizon and population size. The paper then introduces the concept of a forecast ‘shelf life’, which indicates how far into the future a forecast is likely to remain reliable. It also illustrates how past error distributions can be used to create empirical prediction intervals for current forecasts. These two complementary measures provide a simple way of communicating the likely magnitude of error that can be expected with current local area population forecasts.