The physical forces and environmental stressors that occur during extreme weather events place facilities at risk for infrastructure failures, loss of operation and production, and highly impactful chemical releases, all of which directly affect a company's bottom line. Hurricane Harvey (2017) resulted in over 100 such failures and chemical releases. There is a pressing need today for risk predictions that incorporate and account for evolving environmental factors such as continuous sea level rise. Such nonstatic (nonstationary) risk management approaches will allow us to more accurately predict storm surge flooding as a function of time and provide more realistic short-term and long-term (on the order of decades) predictions to assist in actionable planning. An integrated three-part approach to assessing the risk of infrastructure damage and chemical releases and the resulting business and legal consequences are presented in this work. This approach consists of (a) temporally variant and spatially localized probabilistic predictions of flooding and forces related to flooding (FloodScore) with unprecedented resolution; (b) detailed impact predictions on facility infrastructure including structural, mechanical, and electrical elements based on the predictions from step (a); and (c) a quantitative means of scoring the environmental/financial risk and consequences of chemicals released as derived from step (b). This integrated approach, which assesses risk of losses in both the near term and out to 50 years in the future, includes the assessment of ecological and human impact levels and provides actionable information for resiliency and risk mitigation planning. K E Y W O R D S extreme weather events, risk management
Background: In November 2019, the IWill gender equity pledge campaign called individuals in a health sciences university to make public pledges for gender equity and fostered meaningful dialog to alter mental models and power dynamics. Over 1400 staff, faculty, and students chose 1 of 18 pledges or created their own. Methods: A follow-up, mixed-methods survey was sent to 1405 participants in July 2020. Results: Fifty-six percent ( n = 769) responded. Over 70% endorsed fulfilling their pledge and believed they had the power to promote equity. Men were significantly more likely to endorse fulfilling their pledge, and men and learners endorsed having the power to create change at significantly higher rates than women. Key barriers included time, support for completion, and nonconducive culture or hierarchy. Key supports included personal reminders, self-reflection, and support from a partner, community, or leader. Top reasons for participation in the campaign included fairness or justice, being part of a community, team diversity as an inherent good, and the sense that the Medical College of Wisconsin's (MCW) should be a leader in gender equity. Conclusion: The IWill campaign successfully encouraged faculty, staff, and learners to reflect upon and engage in equity work. Key learnings included the need to streamline administrative support while building a sense of community around equity, and the further work needed to engage leaders and directly support not just individual but also departmental and institutional efforts in gender equity.
The size distribution of oil droplets formed in subsea oil and gas blowouts is known to have a strong impact on their subsequent fate in the environment. Small droplets have low rising velocities, are more influenced by oceanographic turbulence and have larger potential for natural biodegradation. Subsea Dispersant Injection (SSDI) is an established method for achieving this goal, lowering the interfacial tension between the oil and water and significantly reducing oil droplet size. However, despite its many advantages, the use of SSDI could be limited both by logistical constraints and legislative restrictions. Adding to the toolkit a method to achieve subsea dispersion, without the use of chemicals, would therefore enhance oil spill response capability. This option is called Subsea Mechanical Dispersion (SSMD). An extensive feasibility study on SSMD has been performed and the main findings are reported in this paper. The work was initiated by BP in 2015 and later followed up by a consortium of Equinor, Total Norge, Aker BP and Lundin. The first phase explored multiple principles of generating subsea dispersions (ultrasonic, mechanical shear forces and water jetting) through both laboratory experiments and modelling. These studies clearly indicate that SSMD has an operational potential to significantly reduce oil droplet sizes from a subsea release and influence the fate and behaviour of the released oil volume. The recent work reported in this paper on operationalisation, upscaling and large-scale testing of subsea water jetting. This work is performed by SINTEF in close cooperation with Exponent (computational fluid dynamics and shear stress modelling) and Oceaneering (operationalisation and full-scale prototyping).
Wearable electronic devices present new testing challenges for product engineers as they battle with the different variables that can influence the risk of burn injuries on consumers
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