This study investigated the characteristics of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere at the surrounding area of an oil storage and pumping station from March to June, 2001. The influence of operation condition of storage and pumping station as well as meteorological factors on the distribution of VOCs was also investigated. In this study, a sampling network including six sites around the boundary of the oil storage and pumping station and one site at a nearby village was established for the sampling of VOCs near ground level. Air samples were collected by a carbontrap 300 multi-bed stainless steel sampling tube and were desorbed by a thermal desorption unit (TDU). The desorbed VOCs samples were then analyzed by a gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC/FID). In addition, hydrocarbons (both methane and non-methane hydrocarbons) and meteorological condition including wind speed and wind direction were detected automatically in order to correlate with the concentration of VOCs. Results from field measurement indicated that up to twelve VOCs were detected in the atmosphere, which quite consisted with the composition of stored oil including petroleum crude oil, aviation turbine fuel, 95 unleaded gasoline, and naphtha. Major VOCs observed at the surrounding area of the oil storage and pumping station were benzene and toluene, however, in most cases high boil-point organic compounds were also detected. It suggested that the nearby village could not be solely affected by VOCs emitted from oil storage tanks but also from other local sources such as steel plating plants. Furthermore, meteorological condition played an important role on the dispersion of fugitive VOCs at the surrounding area. For instance, the concentration of VOCs at the downwind sites were generally higher than that at the upwind sites while northern and northwestern winds blew in late Spring. Besides, toluene to benzene concentration ratios (T/B) ranged from 1.5 to 2.1 during the southwestern wind period in Summer, which were higher than those (T/B£1.5) during the northern and northwestern wind periods in late Spring. It suggested that the nearby village as a sensitive location could be much more easily affected by local traffics than the oil storage and pumping station during the summer time since T/B ratios were approximately 2.0 in the tail gas exhausted from automobiles. From the viewpoint of health risk assessment, the location with highest potential risk at the surrounding area of the oil storage and pumping station was the floating oil tank zone which required better operation strategies of the oil storage and pumping station for the protection of ambient air quality.

<p>Background: In today’s more challenging business environment companies operating in a global market are faced by uncountable numbers of risks. The foundation of this report is based on the scenario of risks within one of the most important industries for the Swedish economy, namely the Forest, Paper and Packaging (FPP)industry. Sweden is one of the most forested countries in Europe and despite being a small country Sweden alone stands for 7 percent of the world’s total FPP production. However, it has been argued that the FPP industry might be in the midst of change where several articles and reports have commented on the upcoming challenges within the industry.</p><p>Problem discussion & Purpose: Globalization, shifting economical paradigm, a rising interest for sustainability, increased raw material prices and tougher market conditions have in combination lead to a change in today’s view of how to handle risks. FPP companies have to deal with countless number of issues facing business today and the question of how to manage risks across organizations are becoming increasingly important. The purpose of this thesis is to identify risks faced by the Swedish FPP industry and thereafter assess the most crucial risks impact and likelihood of occurrence and how they are linked to the dilemma of holding forestland or not.</p><p>Method: This study has its origin in interprevitism along with the ontological assumptions of constuctionism. An abductive research approach has been applied that has features from both deduction and induction. The study has applied the three research strategies; descriptive, explanatory and exploratory study in order to produce a true representation, describe relationships and in the same time seek new insight into the researched phenomena. A qualitative research strategy was applied where several semi-structured interviews were carried out, with respondents selected through a purposive sample of the Swedish FPP industry. Thereafter complementary material was sent out in form of a self-administrative questionnaire regarding the identified risks and their significance.</p><p>Theoretical framework: Consist of general theories concerning macro environment and risk analysis theories for understanding industries along with previous reports concerning the FPP industry. In order to determent the nature and scale of the risk the Risk radar model will be applied along with an assessment of impact and likelihood of occurrence.</p><p>Conclusion: The Swedish FPP industry today faces the following risks; Globalization & Shift of Capital to the Emerging Markets, Overcapacity, Foreign Exchange Impact & Currency Risks, Export & Import Taxes, Raw Material, Energy & Transportation Costs, Sustainability & Increased Environmental Awareness and Climate Change & Unforeseen Events. Out of these risks the most crucial where proven to be Raw Material and Energy & Transportation Costs hence there high impact and likelihood of occurrence. Given the pros and cons of holding forestland in relation to the most crucial risks identified the ownership of forestland can be seen as a strategic way of educing the threat from these risks, turning them into opportunities.</p>

The assessment of the safety of structures and of the risk of a structural failure under consideration of the consequences of damage or loss increasingly gain in importance from a technical viewpoint as well as from an economic perspective. The quality of the assessment results is essentially affected by the degree with which the computational model and the structural parameters are specified close to reality. To enable a reliable prediction of the safety and of the risk, a natural and extensive data bank is required. This is generally only of a limited extent and, moreover, uncertain. This can lead to serious mistakes in the safety and risk assessment of structures. In the present paper, the weaknesses of the currently used methods for safety and risk assessment are highlighted, and alternative models that provide qualitatively improved solutions are presented. / Die Beurteilung der Sicherheit von Tragwerken und die Abschätzung des Risikos eines Tragwerksversagens unter Beachtung der Schadensfolgen gewinnen sowohl aus technischer als auch aus wirtschaftlicher Sicht zunehmend an Bedeutung. Die Qualität der Aussagen wird wesentlich dadurch bestimmt, wie realitätsnah das Berechnungsmodell und die Tragwerksparameter gewählt werden. Um die Sicherheit und das Risiko verlässlich prognostizieren zu können, bedarf es realitätsnaher und umfassender Daten. Diese sind i. d. R. nur begrenzt vorhanden und außerdem unscharf. Das kann bei der Sicherheitsbeurteilung und Risikobewertung von Tragwerken zu groben Fehleinschätzungen führen. Im Beitrag werden die Defizite der derzeit gebräuchlichen Verfahren zur Sicherheits- und Risikobeurteilung herausgestellt und alternative Modelle vorgestellt, die qualitativ bessere Lösungen bieten.

<p>For the majority of the estimated 70,000 industrial chemical substances available on the European market today there is not enough information to enable a reasonably complete assessment of the risks that they might pose to man and the environment. Any strategy for the generation of additional data for these substances should aim at making testing as efficient as possible taking into account environmental and health protection, time, monetary cost and animal welfare. To achieve this, appropriate priority setting rules are needed.</p><p>The main criterion currently used for regulatory priority setting for testing of industrial chemicals is production volume; the higher the production volume, the more information is required. This was also the main criterion in the former legislation, preceding REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals). The aim of this thesis is to evaluate other priority setting criteria and their implications for risk management, in particular classification and labelling.</p><p>The first paper in this thesis includes a study of the<i> efficiency ratio</i> for some of the tests required for the notification of new substances, i.e. the ratio between the likelihood that the test will lead to a classification, and the monetary cost of performing the test. The efficiency ratio was determined for the standard tests for acute oral toxicity, irritation, sensitisation and subacute toxicity using data from 1409 new chemicals notified in Europe between 1994 and 2004. The results of this investigation suggest that, given limited resources for testing, it is more efficient to perform acute toxicity tests on a larger number of substances rather than to perform additional subacute toxicity studies on the substances already tested for acute toxicity.</p><p>The second paper included in this thesis, reports the results from a comparative study of the bioaccumulating properties of substances being (a) classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic and/or toxic to reproduction (CMR-substances), or (b) classified as acutely toxic or (c) unclassified. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate potential consequences of prioritising bioaccumulating chemicals for evaluation and testing, as this is one of the strategies prescribed in REACH. The results of this study suggest that bioaccumulating substances are neither over- nor underrepresented among the CMR-substances. This result lends support to the use of the bioconcentration factor for priority setting.</p><p>The studies reported in this thesis utilize existing data on classification of substances as an indicator of the outcome of the risk assessment process, relating priority setting methods to the risk management measures that they give rise to. To the best of my knowledge there are still only very few studies published that address the issue of priority setting in chemicals control using this approach, and in my view there is need for more studies of priority setting methods and a further development of priority setting strategies that are science-based.</p>

<p>Assessments of chemical health risks are performed by scientific experts. Their intended use is as bases for decisions. This thesis tries to answer the questions of how uncertainty is, and should be, communicated in such risk assessments. The thesis consists of two articles and an introductory essay.</p><p>Article I focuses on the linguistic aspect of the communication of uncertainty in risk assessments. The aim of the article is to elucidate how risk assessors actually indicate uncertainty in risk assessment reports. Because of the prevalent uncertainty in risk assessment, deriving from several sources, uncertainty is communicated in verbal, rather than numerical terms. A typology of uncertainty indicators – phrases used to express uncertainty – is proposed and applied to the reviewed reports. It is found that the use of such phrases is not transparent, and the article concludes by a number of recommendations for improving the practice.</p><p>Article II mainly deals with the content of the communication. The overall question treated is what a characterization of uncertainty should include if a decision made on the basis of the risk assessment information is to be as well-founded as possible. A set of conditions is put forward to be fulfilled by a characterization of uncertainty if it is to be adequate from a decision-making point of view.</p><p>The greater part of the introductory essay is devoted to the concept of uncertainty which, at the conceptual level, does not appear to have been much discussed by philosophers</p>

<p>Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) are used as an important regulatory instrument to protect workers’ health from adverse effects of chemical exposures. The OELs mirror the outcome of the risk assessment and risk management performed by the standard setting actor. In paper I the OELs established by 18 different organisations or national regulatory agencies from the industrialised world were compared. The comparison concerned: (1) what chemicals have been selected and (2) the average level of exposure limits for all chemicals. In paper II the OELs established by 7 different national regulatory agencies of EU member states are compared to those of the European Commission (EC). In addition to the same comparisons as performed in the first study a comparison level was introduced (3) the similarity between the OELs of these EU member states and the OELs recommended by the EC.</p><p>List of OELs were collected through the web-pages of, and e-mail communication with the standard-setting agencies. The selection of agencies was determined by availability of the lists. The database of paper I contains OELs for a total of 1341 substances; of these 25 substances have OELs from all 18 organisations while more than one third of the substances are only regulated by one organisation alone. In paper II this database was narrowed down to the European perspective.  The average level of OELs differs substantially between organisations; the US OSHA exposure limits are (on average) nearly 40 % higher than those of Poland. Also within Europe there was a nearly as large difference. The average level of lists tends to decrease over time, although there are exceptions to this. The similarity index in paper II indicates that the exposure limits of EU member states are converging towards the European Commission’s recommended OELs. These two studies also showed that OELs for the same substance can vary significantly between different standard-setters. The work presented in paper III identifies steps in the risk assessment that could account for these differences. Substances for which the level of OELs vary by a factor of 100 or more were identified and their documentation sought for further scrutiny. Differences in the identification of the critical effect could explain the different level of the OELs for half of the substances. The results reported in paper III also confirm the tendency of older OELs generally being higher. Furthermore, several OELs were more than 30 years old and were based on out-dated knowledge. But the age of the data review could not account for all the differences in data selection, only one fifth of the documents referred to all available key studies. Also the evaluation of the key studies varied significantly.</p>

<p>The highly toxic man-made substance referred to as dioxin (polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs)) causes severe health damages both to humans and other organisms, with lethality as its worst. Because of the toxicity several risk assessments has been performed on dioxins trying to determine at what concentration there are no risk of exposure. Resent years of research has discovered that these substances are not only anthropogenically but also producedin natural processes, like volcanoes and forest fires. To investigate if there is a need to take these naturally formed dioxins into account in the risk assessment processes, interviews with persons at relevant institutions in Sweden has been made. Analyses of existing risk assessment methods and political documents were also made to complete the picture. The general attitude seams to be awareness of the natural contribution, but clueless when it comes to adapting it to the risk assessments. When scenarios of different possibilities of natural background levels were compared to available risk assessments there could be concluded that the natural contribution is of importance and should be pronounced as a special part of the risk assessment process.</p>

Thesis--University of Oklahoma. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-41).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-190).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-229).