The increasing complexity in highly technological systems such as aviation, maritime, air traffic control, telecommunications, nuclear power plants, space missions, chemical and petroleum industry, and healthcare and patient safety is leading to potentially disastrous failure modes and new kinds of safety issues. Traditional accident modelling approaches are not adequate to analyse accidents th...

Two comments can be made on this matter. First, it is likely that nuclear power is safe based on short-term issues; the imponderables that carry weight with the objectors are the uncertainties of major accidents, long-term wastes and proliferation. Current risk studies do not banish these fears. Secondly, if these studies aim to influence choice of energy mix for the future, they should extrapo...

Copyright © 2011 Massachusetts Medical Society. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck the east coast of Japan. The total number of people who died in the earthquake and the tsunami that it generated is still being assessed, but the official estimation already exceeds 14,000.1 The natural disaster also caused substantial damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the con...

In environmental remediation after nuclear accidents, radioactive wastes have to be appropriately managed in existing exposure situations with contamination resulting from the emission of radionuclides by such accidents. In this paper, a framework of radiation protection from radioactive waste management in existing exposure situations for application to the practical and reasonable waste manag...

From biotechnology to cyber-risks, most extreme technological risks cannot be reliably estimated from historical statistics. Engineers resort to probability safety analysis (PSA), which consists in developing models to simulate accidents, potential scenarios, their severity and frequency. However, even the best safety analysis struggles to account for evolving risks resulting from inter-connect...

BACKGROUND After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident on March 11, 2011, interest in, and fear of, radiation increased among citizens. When such accidents occur, appropriate risk communication must provided by the government. It is therefore necessary to understand the fears of citizens in the days after such accidents. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to identify the progression of people's conc...