Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research

Just after the Big Bang occurred, conditions became ideal for the building blocks of matter — the quarks and electrons — to be formed. But time scales work in billionth…

Boomi Nathan

Difficulties in establishing Safeguards

Incomplete knowledge of the engineering subject     Refusal to face hard questions caused by lack of knowledge     False sense of security     e.g. Nuclear waste disposal problem     Caution…

Jacob

Accounting publicly for benefits and risks

Engineers should account publicly for benefits and risks in the following manner: Engineers must remain as objective as humanly possible in their investigations and conclusions. They must also state openly…

Jacob

India-based Neutrino Observatory

The government-owned India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is aimed at studying the properties and interactions of the elementary particle called neutrino. Neutrinos are neutral particles a million times lighter than the…

Boomi Nathan

Public Risk and Public Acceptance

 Risks and benefits to public are more easily determined than to individuals     National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)- proposed a value for life based on:     Loss of future…

Jacob

Difficulties in assessing Personal Risks

•   Individuals are ready to assume voluntary risks than involuntary risks. •   The difficulty here is generally in assessing personal risks which are involuntary. •   The problem of quantification of risk raises innumerable problems. •    For example, how to assign a rupee value to one’s life. There is no over the counter trade in lives. •   Even for a sale, it has to be clear under what conditions the sale is to take place. •   If one buys a kg of rice it matters whether it is just one additional purchase one makes Regularly or it is the first rice purchase after quite sometime. •    Even when compensations are made to people exposed to involuntary risk, the basis on which it is made or even the intensity of risk could be different for different people. •    As of now, the one suggestion could be to employ an open procedure, overseen b y trained arbiters, in each case, where risk to individuals is to be studied and remedied.

Jacob

ROBOTICS IN INDIA

Manifest pedagogy: Robotics though mentioned in Indian Economic Survey 2017-18 as priority area but it has not drawn attention of amy policy or plan. However, the works in private sector and…

Boomi Nathan

Conceptual difficulties in Risk-Benefit Analysis

Both risks and benefits lie in future heavy discounting of future because the very low present values of cost/benefits do not give a true picture of future sufferings.     Both…

Jacob

Risk Benefit Analysis

Ethical Implications When is someone entitled to impose a risk on another in view of a supposed benefit to others? Consider   the   worst   case   scenarios   of   persons   exposed   to   maximum  …

Jacob

Failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA)

This  approach  systematically  examines  the  failure  modes  of  each  component,  without however, focusing on relationships among the elements of a complex system. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) A system  failure  is proposed  and  then  events  are  traced  back  to  possible  causes  at  the component level. The reverse of the fault-tree analysis is ‘event – tree analysis’. This method most effectively illustrates the disciplined approach required to capture as much as possible of everything that affects proper functioning and safety of a complex system.

Jacob