This diploma thesis deals with the risks of managing the course of the order in a selected company. It is a production plant of a globally operating concern in the automotive industry, focused on the production of lights. The thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part of the thesis is presented theoretical background based on the literature related to the selected topic. The next part is an analysis of the current situation, which contains a description of the company, a description of order processing in the company and an analysis of the risks that may occur in the selected process. The design part is supposed to propose measures that will lead to minimization of the most serious risks.

The purpose of this study is to present and test a general framework for risk-based investing. It permits various risk-based portfolios such as the global minimum variance, equal risk contribution and equal weight portfolios. The framework also allows for different estimation techniques to be used in finding the portfolios. The design of the study is to collate the existing research on risk-based investing, to analyse some modern methods to reduce estimation risk, to incorporate them in a single coherent framework, and to test the result with South African equity data. The techniques to reduce estimation risk draw from the usual mean-variance and risk-based optimisation literature. The techniques include regime switching, quantile regression, regularisation and subset resampling. In the South African experiment, risk-based portfolios materially outperformed the market weight portfolio out-of-sample using a Sharpe ratio measure. Additionally, the global minimum variance portfolio performed better than other risk-based portfolios. Given the long estimation window, no estimation techniques consistently outperformed the application of sample estimators only.

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Cancer clusters constitute geographical areas where the frequency of cancer diagnoses during a given period of time occur more frequently than expected by chance. Cancer clusters can impact perceptions of risk and generate significant anxiety in communities. Unfortunately, cluster investigations rarely yield the answers citizens seek around a definitive cause of cancer due to the long latency of cancer and other factors. As a result, health officials may appear to be withholding information and not doing enough to address public concerns. Effective cancer risk communication may also be hindered by other stakeholders such as the media, who sometimes sensationalize risks from environmental hazards, which can distort the public’s perceptions of risks. The result may be a community dissatisfied with a cluster investigation’s results, or worse, a community that distrusts local leaders and doesn’t understand the information reported by expert officials. The four studies comprising this dissertation aimed to summarize key issues with the communication of and investigation of cancer clusters in Canada; test the impact of different types of cancer information on risk perceptions; and explore whether individual characteristics and skills were linked to positive attitudes about coping with cancer risks. An analysis of cancer news coverage and interviews with Canadian public health officials revealed that communities may be receiving inadequate and inconsistent information about cancer risks during cluster investigations. In addition, an experiment and survey revealed information trustworthiness and individuals’ numeracy and health literacy to be important factors shaping cancer risk perceptions and attitudes. This work has significant implications for risk communicators and educators seeking improved methodologies of cancer risk communication and risk education to (1) manage differences in cancer risk perceptions between experts and non-experts (2) enhance public trust in institutions and perceptions of expert competence and (3) inform future educational interventions that promote cancer coping beliefs. / Dissertation / Doctor of Science (PhD) / Cancer clusters constitute geographical areas where the frequency of cancer diagnoses during a given period of time occur more frequently than expected by chance. Cancer clusters can generate significant anxiety in communities and influence perceptions of personal safety and health. As cluster investigations rarely yield the answers citizens seek around a definitive cause of cancer, health officials may appear to be withholding information and not doing enough to address public concerns. The objectives of this dissertation were to summarize key issues with the communication of and investigation of cancer clusters in Canada; test the impact of different types of cancer information on risk perceptions; and explore whether individual characteristics, expertise and skills were linked to positive attitudes about coping with cancer risks. This work provides insights into the diverse ways that people interpret cancer information and perceive risk and identifies improved methods of conducting cancer risk communication and risk education.

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No description available.

This dissertation consists of three chapters focusing on behaviour under risk and ambiguity. The first chapter analysed the best method to communicate risk information to weather forecast users whilst the last two analysed smallholder farmers’ and students’ decision making on crop selection when presented with uncertainty information of drought. In the first chapter, experimental economics methods were used to assess forecast user understanding of information in temperature forecast. We tested whether undergraduate students presented with uncertainty information (90th percent confidence intervals) in a table and bar graph format were able to correctly understand the forecast and use the extra information to choose the “correct" (most probable) outcome than if they are presented with a deterministic forecast. Participants from the University of Exeter were asked to choose the most probable temperature outcome between a set of “lotteries” based on the temperature up to five days ahead. If they chose a true statement, participants were rewarded with a cash payment. Results indicate that on average participants provided with uncertainty information performed better than those without. Statistical analysis indicates a possible learning effect as the experiment progressed. The second chapter assesses if there are gender differences in the behaviour of smallholder Zimbabwean farmers when faced with risk and ambiguity. The risk and ambiguity preferences of male and female farmers were elicited using a modified Holt and Laury (2002) field experiment. Farmers were asked to choose whether or not to adopt a new drought tolerant variety under different probabilities of a drought occurring. Subjects in one group were presented with known probabilities whilst another group was presented with ambiguous probabilities (range). Most of the farmers’ exhibited extreme ambiguity and risk aversion and female farmers were more averse. Results indicate heterogeneity and the need to disaggregate samples when analysing research results as there maybe underlying factors affecting different groups. The third chapter elicited the risk and ambiguity attitudes of vocational college students in Zimbabwe. Results indicate that in general, students were both risk averse and ambiguity averse. Those presented with the risk treatment were less risk averse compared with those shown the ambiguity treatment. Participants who were presented with the ambiguity treatment behaved as pessimists and perhaps made decisions based on probability of drought that was higher than the provided centre of the range. We found gender differences in risk attitudes: contrary to the norm, female participants were less risk averse compared to their male counterparts. This is however when all subjects are pooled together. Results also indicate that a higher certain payoff perhaps incentivises consistency and increases risk aversion. The data seems to indicate anchoring effects from varying the order the probability of drought was presented.

Risker vid handel på nätet är större än vid handel i fysiska butiker och är ett stort hinder till varför konsumenter väljer att inte handla på nätet. Ett sätt att minska upplevd risk vid e- handel är genom tillit till återförsäljare. Dock är det svårt för en konsument att avgöra om en återförsäljare på nätet är pålitlig eller ej. Då e-handel blir alltmer utbrett och många företag erbjuder varor som är riktade enbart till män eller kvinnor blir vår frågeställning: Hur skiljer sig upplevd risk med e-handel mellan män och kvinnor, och vilken betydelse har tillit till återförsäljare för hantering av dessa risker? För att besvara vår frågeställning diskuterades begreppen upplevd risk och tillit i en manlig och kvinnlig fokusgrupp där olika dimensioner av upplevd risk och påverkande faktorer till tillit togs upp. Dimensionerna av upplevd risk som undersöktes var finansiell-, produkt-, leverans-, social och tidsrisk samt risk med informationssäkerhet. Tillitsfaktorerna som undersöktes var återförsäljar- och hemsideegenskaper, erfarenhet med återförsäljare, tredje part och opportunistiskt beteende. Resultaten från vår studie pekar på att det finns små skillnader mellan män och kvinnor gällande upplevd risk, och att produktrisk är den mest betydande för kvinnorna och den enda risken som männen upplevde. Vidare visade det sig att alla tillitsfaktorer var av betydelse för respondenternas upplevda risk och att erfarenhet var den viktigaste för båda grupperna, men att tredje part var viktigare för kvinnorna än för männen.

Despite considerable declines in physical and sexual abuse over recent decades, child maltreatment remains a public health priority. In 2014, 702,000 children were determined to be victims of maltreatment, 75% of whom experienced neglect (DHHS, 2016). An area in need of further scrutiny is the complex relationship of multiple risk factors and the association of those risk factors with subsequent child welfare involvement. The purpose of this three-manuscript dissertation was to examine evidence-based child maltreatment prevention through an empiric examination of risk and novel prevention efforts. The first paper, Getting the Most Juice for the Squeeze: Where SafeCare® and Other Evidence-based Programs Need to Evolve to Better Protect Children, discusses the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based prevention programs using SafeCare as an applied example. The paper concludes with recommendations for evidence-based practices to improve the outcomes of children and families. Among several recommendations, this paper suggests considering innovative implementation settings, collaboration between systems, and response to the underlying risk factors for maltreatment. The second paper, Drug Court as a Potential Point of Intervention to Impact the Well-being of Children and Families of Substance-Using Parents, responds to the recommendation of collaboration and innovation from the first paper. This descriptive study sought to describe the needs of families of adult drug court populations related to parenting and mental health services. Baseline data indicated a low potential for abuse and the need for mental health services among drug court participants and their children under 18-years old. The findings from this paper indicate a potential intervention and collaboration opportunity between the child welfare and criminal justice systems. The third paper, An Examination of Risk Profiles among Mothers Involved with Child Protective Services, responds to the need to better understand underlying risk factors among child welfare involved families as discussed in the first paper. A latent class analysis was conducted to explore the heterogeneity among women reported to child protective services. In what is typically a homogenously treated and characterized sample, this analysis indicated three classes of risk and examined the classes’ association with subsequent referral to child protective services. The findings of this research support the recommendation of the importance of better understanding underlying risk factors to better align services with needs of children and families.

This thesis examines the role of corporate power in the decision making and regulatory processes for major hazard sites in the UK. In particular, emphasis is placed on the role of risk analytical techniques and the associated use of technical expertise in the public inquiry process by focusing on two areas, Canvey Island (Essex) and Ellesmere Port (Cheshire), over a twenty year period. Evidence shows that the ability of public groups to intervene effectively in the decision making process varies both .spatially and temporally. In order to set this data within a theoretical framework the analysis of public inquiries in these areas takes place in the context of three competing perspectives on power, namely pluralist, elitist and Marxist. Through the use of a number of mediating concepts the three theoretical persectives on power are married to the empirical data derived for the two areas. The research shows that each of the perspectives fails to provide an adequate explanation for events. Against this background some of the models of scientific expertise within decision making are evaluated and it is suggested that such models need to be set in a wider economic and social framework than had previously been allowed for by some authors. It is argued that risk analysis can be used to support the interests of powerful groups and as a consequence its validity as an input into decision making needs to be subjected to more critical scrutiny than has previously been the case. The thesis concludes by making a number of recommendations for the various bodies involved in making judgements about major hazards.