System safety research has a weakness in terms of evaluation. In particular, the field has a poor track record for applying appropriate research methods to the questions we wish to answer, and for evaluating the answers in a convincing way. Given changes in government and public attitudes to research funding, this will be an increasing concern in the near future. In this paper, we define a taxo...

Safety cases are now regularly used to communicate the argument about the achievement of acceptable levels of safety for safety critical systems. Increasingly, safety standards such as Defence Standard 00-56 require the scope of the safety case to cover not only the development of the system, but also operating and maintenance through life, including decommissioning. This involves two dimension...

In previous papers, we asserted that software system safety is primarily concerned with epistemic questions, that is, questions concerning knowledge and the degree of confidence that can be placed in that knowledge. We also enumerated a set of 21 foundational epistemic questions, discussed some of the difficulties that exist in answering these questions adequately today, and speculated briefly ...

The application of stabilization technologies to a radiologically contaminated surface has the potential for reducing spread contamination and, as result, decreasing worker exposure radiation. Three technologies, calcium chloride (CaCl2), flame retardant Phos-Chek® MVP-Fx, and Soil2OTM were investigated evaluate their ability reduce resuspension tracking radiological during response activities ...

We run the risk that terrorists will decide to detonate an explosive device laced with radioactive materials (a radiological dispersal device, or RDD). If such an attack occurs, it is unlikely that the affected population or emergency responders would be exposed to high levels of external radiation, although airborne radionuclides may present a health risk under some circumstances. However, the...

During the almost seven decades of use nuclear fission for electric energy production two major accidents took place, i.e., 1986 Chernobyl accident and 2011 Fukushima one. They were caused by reactor power-surge loss-of-coolant, respectively. Both occurred during hot power shutdown had identical root causes, poor safety culture management in industry state authorities. A brief comparison facili...