Interaction of human-induced factors with natural hazards results in diverse uncertainties and risks among the built environment. Impacts of disaster events experienced in Turkey have revealed the vulnerability of the social, economic, and physical environments along with the various insufficiencies of awareness, legislation, practice and building inspection concepts. The shift towards risk-based disasters policy among the international agenda influences the national disaster policies and efforts. Parallel to this, it is expected from practicing architects to enhance their capacities through disaster risk-based professional training programs in order to develop disaster resilient built environments. Building Inspection System (BIS) is one of the important components of risk reduction approach which ensures the safety of built environment and occupants. The effective BIS has important gaps and deficiencies within the administrative, legal, and technical structures which results in failure of building production process in Turkey. Among the other problems, the main concern related to the ongoing BIS is its fragmented and missing risk-based understanding. The critical analysis indicates the deficient points of administrative and technical issues within the BIS conducted with the certification and professional training model which are not consistent with shifting comprehensive disasters policy and risk-based understanding in Turkey, and proposing a holistic and risk-based certification and training model for practicing architects in Turkey which focuses on disaster resilient built environment development through the comparison of some international best-practiced training model examples with Turkish context. The proposed professional training model has a three-step knowledge acquisition levels (awareness-detailed knowledge-advanced knowledge) which aims to approach to the architectural built environment problems, develop awareness, build-up knowledge and support practice through the holistic disaster risk reduction understanding, and in addition to attend on the complementary and supportive strategies (such as building and environment, building and material, structure and construction contexts) between related issues.

The subject of the study for this dissertation is the relationship between pricing and reserving risks for property-casualty insurance companies. Since the risk characteristics of insurers differ based on their structure, objectives and incentives, segmenting the insurers into subgroups would allow for a better understanding of group-specific risks. Based on this approach to analyzing insurer financial risks, we find that, in a given accident year, the pricing and reserving errors are positively correlated, especially in long-tailed lines of business. Large insurers, stock insurers, and multi-state insurers, in general, exhibit a strong correlation between accident-year price and reserve errors. However, only size of insurers appears to be a factor that influences the interaction between price changes and the calendar year loss reserve adjustments. Furthermore, we find that the pricing risk and reserving risk are marginally more homogenous within a market segment when size, type and number of states are employed as criteria for market segmentation, hence insurance regulators should consider the refined market segments for the RBC formula. The empirical results also indicate that, in general, Chain-Ladder reserving method likely contributes to loss reserve errors when there is a change in the loss development pattern and the magnitude of the errors is worse for large insurers. Finally, we find that our proposed measurement method for the product diversification benefit provides support for the notion that the diversification benefit on the incurred losses increases with the number of lines in the portfolio. Yet, the diminishing returns tend to decrease the diversification benefit on the incurred losses for insurers that write the business in more than six of the selected lines. To the contrary, our proposed measure does not provide clear evidence that writing business in many product lines increases the product diversification benefit with respect to adverse loss development. We do find that the diversification benefit for both incurred losses and loss development is higher for larger insurers. Hence, for risk management and regulatory purposes, a stronger case can be made for considering firm size than product diversification.

Identifying the detrimental effect of environmental factors and subsystem interactions are one of themost challenging aspects of early hazard assessment in the design of complex safety critical systems.Therefore, a complete understanding of potential failure effects before the catastrophe happens is a verydifficult task. The thesis proposes a model-based hazard analysis procedure for early identification ofpotential safety issues caused by unexpected environmental factors and subsystem interactions within acomplex safety critical system. The proposed methodology maps hazard and vulnerability modes tospecific components in the system and analyzes the hazard propagation paths for risk control andprotection strategies. The main advantage of the proposed method is the ability to provide the designerswith means to use low-fidelity, high level models to identify hazardous interactions. Using thistechnique, designers can examine the collective impacts of environmental and subsystem risks onoverall system during early stages of design and develop a hazard mitigation strategy.

Chemicals and additives in products being produced and marketed globally, this makes an international harmonised assessment and management essential. Chemical testing, research on risks, impacts and management options are carried out throughout the globe but quite fractionated to certain areas and sectors and much too often with little linkages between the different scientific communities. The coordination action (CA) \"RISKCYCLE\" is aimed to establish and o-ordinate a global network of European and international experts and stakeholders to define together future needs of R+D contributions for innovations in the risk-based management of chemicals and products in a circular economy of global scale leading to alternative strategies to animal tests and reduced health hazards. The partners joining this action seek to explore the synergies of the research carried out within different programmes and countries of the EU, in Asia and overseas to facilitate the intensified communication with researchers, institutions and industries about the risks of hazardous chemicals and additives in products and risk reduction measures and to improve the dispersion of available information. The RISKCYCLE network will closely collaborate with related projects, EU and international bodies and authorities such as for example the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) and the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks in Europe. / Mục đích chính của RISKCYCLE là xác đinh các nghiện cứu và sự phát triển trong tương lai cấn thiết để thành lập một phương pháp đánh giá dựa trện rủi ro cho các hoá chất và các sản phấm. Phương pháp này sẽ giúp giảm bớt các thủ nghiệm trện động vật, đổng thời đảm bảo sự phát triển các hóa chất mới và một mô hình quản lý sản phấm để giảm thiểu rủi ro đối với sức khởe và môi trường. để đạt được mục tiệu này, trước hết cấn thu thập và đánh giá thông tin hiện có về các hoá chất và đặc biệt là các chất phụ gia được sủ dụng trong sản phấm công nghiệp và tiệu dùng. Nhiều hợp chất độc hại tiềm tàng được giao dich mua bán trện toàn thế giới như là chất phụ gia trong các sản phấm khác nhau. RISKCYCLE sẽ tập trung vào tác động và hậu quả của các chất phụ gia trong sáu lĩnh vực: dệt may, điện tủ, nhựa, da, giấy và dấu mớ bôi trơn. Trong ngành công nghiệp dệt may việc sủ dụng các chất phụ gia sẽ được nghiện cứu, trong khi ở ngành điện tủ và công nghiệp dệt may, việc sủ dụng các chất chống cháy, đặc biệt là chất chống cháy chứa brôm như PBDEs và HBCD, sẽ được phân tích. Trong công nghiệp da, kim loại nặng như crom sẽ được quan tâm. Việc sủ dụng chất diệt côn trùng trong ngành công nghiệp giấy cũng sẽ là một mối quan tâm chính của các hoạt động phối hợp.

This study presents detailed procedures for site assessment, remedial system design, and optimization of the remedial action operation (RAO) for the petroleum-hydrocarbons contaminated sites. In this work, a petroleum-hydrocarbons contaminated site located in southern Taiwan was selected. Contaminants of concerns (CoCs) from leaking underground storage tanks (USTs) and associated piping included mono-aromatics (e.g., benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene, xylenes), naphthalene, and aliphatic hydrocarbons. The direct push (DP) technology was adopted for soil gas and soil samples collection. CoCs in the affected subsurface soils and the aquifers were determined by solid-phase micro-extraction/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and several other analytic instruments. Site investigation via various tests was conducted to evaluate the geology, hydrogeology, bioactivity and free product availability. Based on results of specific site characterization, successful hydraulic containment and substantial recovery of observed free-phase petroleum product were achieved. During the process of field-scale remediation, a test cell which was equipped with a subset of monitoring points and numerous different function active wells (injection well, extraction well, monitoring well, soil gas monitoring probe, reference well and recovery well) was used for remedial system evaluation. A treatment train consisting of the source control treatment and in situ groundwater treatment technology was employed in this study. The former included a vertical containment barrier (i.e., slurry wall) and three pumping wells, whereas the latter included some passive remedial activities. Approximately 87% to 95% decline of the CoCs concentration was observed in those monitor wells after 135 days of operation. Results show that the spilled light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) could be efficiently contained and removed using the treatment train system. The treatment train application could be successfully used to reduce the concentrations of CoCs in groundwater to satisfactory levels. Benzene was found to be the only compound in groundwater violating the groundwater pollution control standard. The risk assessment process including hazard identification and exposure assessment was conducted to assess the risk impact of benzene on the human health. Using the methodology approved by ASTM and American Petroleum Institute (API), the baseline carcinogenic risk (9.0E-07) and risk-based groundwater screening level for benzene (0.660 mg/L) were determined. The BIOPLUME III model was also applied to simulate the transport and fate of benzene in site groundwater. Results from this study indicate that site assessment coupled with the treatment train could be used to reduce the concentrations of CoCs in groundwater and soil to satisfactory levels efficiently and effectively.

The subsurface environmental contamination investigation, assessment and remediation of petro-chemical contaminated site have been the most challenging environmental issues of environmental protection. If subsurface environmental mediums like soil and groundwater are contaminated, the investigation and remediation will always be time-consuming and costly even though they could not be cleaned up completely. Groundwater contaminated by chlorinated volatile solvents is more difficult to remedy owing to its property of dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL). This study focuses on petro-chemicals contaminated site whose subsurface environment is contaminated by chlorinated ethene. The study will also find out the efficient, effective and economic ways to identify and concretely delineate the characterization of subsurface environment and contamination, conduct human health risk management and take risk-based corrective action, so as to formulate an appropriate risk management strategy and solution. Firstly, this study applies a Triad approach to accelerate and streamline the investigation process of contaminated site. Introduction of project systematic planning, dynamic work strategy and in situ, real time survey or direct-push sampling like membrane interface probe, together with off-site measures like physical measurement and chemical analytic testing in laboratory, could reduce the key uncertain characteristics of subsurface environmental contamination and establish the conceptual cite models for health risk assessment cost-effectively. It is estimated that this method could save 6 million NTD and shorten 3 years¡¦ time in site characteristics delineation and remediation. If we wish to make the site defensible via managing the uncertain decision, the integration of Triad approach which is developed by United States Environmental Protection Agency, and Environmental Site Assessment, Accelerated Site Characterization, Health Risk Assessment and Risk-based Corrective action which were developed by American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), are proved in this study that they could help streamline the site characterization and remediation. This study is based on the conceptual site models of Triad Approach, the Risk-based corrective action of ASTM, the Health Risk Assessment and Evaluation Methods for Soil and Groundwater Contaminated Site, and also the software developed by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration. Through the health risk assessment of chlorinated ethenes contaminated site, this research aims to evaluate the quantitative health risk like chemical of concern, environmental medium, and human exposure pathway etc. The result of evaluation showed that the carcinogenic risk of tier 2 is 1.080E-01 which exceeds the acceptable risk-based standard, 1E-06; tier 2¡¦s non-carcinogenic risk, 1.819E+03, also exceeds the acceptable hazard index which is 1. Groundwater poses the highest risk among environmental media, followed by inhalation of vapor from contaminated soil and/or groundwater. The risk of inhalation of top soil particulates is the lowest. The most dangerous carcinogenic exposure of groundwater is using groundwater for shower and washing whose risk is 8.064E-02; the second highest carcinogenic pathway is groundwater ingestion. Trichloroethylene is the key chemical of concern which poses 95.6% of carcinogenic risk among all chemicals of concern. Groundwater ingestion poses the highest non-carcinogenic risk (8.919E+02), and the main chemical of concern is cis-1, 2-dichloroethylene. The main chemical of concern of soil volatilization is cis-1, 2-dichloroethylene, followed by trichloroethylene. If the site in this study wishes to reduce the health risk of human beings, it is suggested to simultaneously implement integrated risk-based corrective actions including institutional control, engineering control and remediation. For institutional control, prohibition of pumping groundwater and pumping well installation is the most cost-effective choice. For engineering control, concrete capping on uncovered surface soil is feasible when dealing with soil contamination. When it comes to groundwater contamination, steel sheet pile containment or pumping well installation could help intercept the migration of groundwater. Regarding remediation, in-situ chemical reduction injection or permeable reactive barrier, incorporated together with monitored natural attenuation are more practicable alternatives, however, they are time-consuming and costly. The process and result of this study could be the basis for managers and/or decision makers of contaminated site to conduct risk-based management and decision making.

Many studies suggest the ability of the NAIC Risk-Based Capital ratio (RBC ratio) to predict insurer insolvency. Based on the US life insurer (insurer) data for the period of 2005 to 2008, this study finds explanatory variables that have a statistically significant relationship with the RBC ratio. Advantages of panel data over cross-sectional and time series data analysis are exploited to make valid inference on coefficients of the explanatory variables. Testing for unobserved insurer and time effects and for dependence between these effects and the explanatory variables indicates the appropriateness of the fixed insurer and time effects model. Based on the ordinary least squares estimates, it is found that insurers' size, capital-to-asset ratio, and return on capital have a statistically significant relationship with the RBC ratio. Additionally, health product, annuity product, opportunity, and regulatory risks of insurers are related to the RBC ratio. Accounting for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation for a given insurer yields the same coefficient estimates, but increased standard errors. / text

This study focused on identifying factors that significantly affect the potentially insolvent status of life insurers. The potentially insolvent status is indicated based on insurer’s Risk-based capital ratio (RBC ratio) reported in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) database of life insurers’ annual statements. A logistic regression analysis is performed to explore the relationship between the RBC insolvent indicator and a set of explanatory variables including insurer’s size, capital, governance structure, membership in a group of affiliated companies, and various risk measures during the 2006-2008 period. The results suggest that the probability of potential insolvency for an individual insurer is significantly affected by its size, capital-to-asset ratio, returns on capital, health product risk and proportion of products reinsured. It could be also possibly affected by the insurer’s regulatory asset risk. However, the results indicate that the probability is not significant related to the insurer’s annuity product risk, opportunity asset risk, governance structure and its membership in a group of affiliated companies. On average, by holding all other explanatory variables constant, every 1% increase in total assets will result in a decrease of 0.19 to 0.36% on the odds of potentially insolvent rates; every 0.01 unit increase in capital-to-asset ratio will result in a decrease of a multiplicative factor of 0.951 to 0.956 on the odds; every 0.01 unit increase in return on capital will result in a decrease of a multiplicative factor of 0.984 to 0.985 on the odds; every 0.01 unit increase in health product risk will result in an increase of a multiplicative factor of 1.021 to 1.031 on the odds; and every 0.01 unit increase in proportion of products reinsured will result in an increase of a multiplicative factor of 1.015 to 1.026 on the odds. The assumptions of independency and absence of harmful multicolliearity are both valid for this logistic model, suggesting that the model is adequate and the conclusion is warranted. Although the potentially insolvent indicator, instead of the real insolvent indicator is used, this model could still be useful to identify the significant factors which affect life insurers’ potentially insolvent status. / text

This thesis is an investigation of external biosecurity and its application to risk-based surveillance approaches in the southern Ontario swine industry. In each of two datasets, the best number of groups to describe biosecurity practices was identified, resulting in two groups with high biosecurity standards and one group with low biosecurity standards. Multinomial logistic regression models identified herd density, herd size, and herd type among significant predictors of biosecurity group membership. A map of southern Ontario that can be used as a tool in the risk-based surveillance of contagious swine diseases was developed using geographic information about swine density, and the distribution of herds belonging to the high biosecurity groups. Finally, multiple correspondence analysis examined how individual biosecurity practices form strategies on sow farms. Some practices that are generally considered high-risk were closely associated with other practices that mitigate the risk, suggesting that evaluation of the overall strategy is essential for complete assessment of biosecurity. / The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (under the Emergency Management research theme); Ontario Pork; the Ontario Pork Industry Council's Swine Health Advisory Board; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada;

Risk-based authentication is an increasingly popular component in the security architecture deployed by many organizations in mitigating online identity threat. Risk-based authentication uses contextual and historical information extracted from online communications to build a risk profile for the user that can be used to make accordingly authentication and authorization decisions. Existing risk-based authentication systems rely on basic web communication information such as the source IP address or the velocity of transactions performed by a specific account, or originating from a certain IP address. Such information can easily be spoofed and as such put in question the robustness and reliability of the proposed systems. In this thesis, we propose in this work an online risk-based authentication system which provides more robust user identity information by combining mouse dynamics, keystroke dynamics biometrics, and user site actions in a multimodal framework. We propose a Bayesian network model for analyzing free keystrokes and mouse movements involved in web sessions. Experimental evaluation of our proposed model with 24 participants yields an Equal Error Rate of 6.91%. This is encouraging considering that we are dealing with free text and mouse movements and the fact that many web sessions tend to be short. / Graduate