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Normal Accidents
''Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies'' is a 1984 book by Yale sociologist Charles Perrow, which analyses complex systems from a sociological perspective. Perrow argues that multiple and unexpected failures are built into society's complex and tightly coupled systems, and that accidents are unavoidable and cannot be designed around. System accidents "Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so-called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Perrow said that, while operator error is a very common problem, many failures relate to organizations rather than technology, and major accidents almost always have very small beginnings. Such events appear trivial to begin with before unpredictably cascading through the system to create a large event with severe consequences. ''Normal Accidents' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Perrow
Charles Bryce Perrow (February 9, 1925 – November 12, 2019), or Chick Perrow was an American sociologist and a leading figure of organizational sociology. He spent most of his career at SUNY Stony Brook and Yale University as a professor of sociology. He authored several books and many articles on organizations, including Normal Accidents, and was primarily concerned with the impact of large organizations on society. Academic appointments After attending Black Mountain College in North Carolina and University of Washington, Perrow moved to and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his B.A. in 1953, M.A. in 1955 and PhD in 1960, all in sociology. His M.A. thesis was supervised by Reinhard Bendix and his PhD thesis was supervised by Philip Selznick. Perrow became an instructor and later an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, where he stayed until 1963. He then moved to the University of Pittsburgh, where he stayed between 1963 an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
The Fukushima nuclear accident was a major nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan, which began on 11 March 2011. The cause of the accident was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in electrical grid failure and damaged nearly all of the power plant's backup energy sources. The subsequent inability to sufficiently cool reactors after shutdown compromised containment and resulted in the release of radioactive contaminants into the surrounding environment. The accident was rated seven (the maximum severity) on the International Nuclear Event Scale by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, following a report by the JNES (Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization). It is regarded as the worst nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which was also rated a seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale. According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, "no a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Failure
Failure is the social concept of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and is usually viewed as the opposite of success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One person might consider a failure what another person considers a success, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation. It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria or heuristics to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task. Sociology Cultural historian Scot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Safety Engineering
Safety engineering is an engineering Branches of science, discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety. It is strongly related to industrial engineering/systems engineering, and the subset system safety engineering. Safety engineering assures that a life-critical system behaves as needed, even when components Failure, fail. Analysis techniques Analysis techniques can be split into two categories: Qualitative research, qualitative and Quantitative research, quantitative methods. Both approaches share the goal of finding causal dependencies between a hazard on system level and failures of individual components. Qualitative approaches focus on the question "What must go wrong, such that a system hazard may occur?", while quantitative methods aim at providing estimations about probabilities, rates and/or severity of consequences. The complexity of the technical systems such as Improvements of Design and Materials, Planned Inspections, Fool-pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Safety And Security
Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the environment from undue radiation hazards". The IAEA defines nuclear security as "The prevention and detection of and response to, theft, sabotage, unauthorized access, illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear materials, other radioactive substances or their associated facilities". This covers nuclear power plants and all other nuclear facilities, the transportation of nuclear materials, and the use and storage of nuclear materials for medical, power, industry, and military uses. The nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed new and safer reactor designs. However, a perfect safety cannot be guaranteed. Potential sources of problems include human errors and external ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aviation Safety
Aviation safety is the study and practice of managing risks in aviation. This includes preventing aviation accidents and incidents through research, educating air travel personnel, passengers and the general public, as well as the design of aircraft and aviation infrastructure. The aviation industry is subject to significant regulations and oversight. Aviation security is focused on protecting air travelers, aircraft and infrastructure from intentional harm or disruption, rather than unintentional mishaps. Statistics Evolution Aviation is safer today than it has ever been. Modern commercial aviation boasts an accident rate of approximately 1 fatal accident per 16 million flights, far lower than historic numbers. On December 14, 1903, the Wright Brothers conducted a test flight of their powered airplane from the slope of Big Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina. Upon takeoff, the airplane lifted about 15 feet off the ground, stalled, and crashed into the sand. Only three da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Encyclopedia Of The Social & Behavioral Sciences
The ''International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences'', originally edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, is a 26-volume work published by Elsevier. It has some 4,000 signed articles (commissioned by around 50 subject editors), and includes 150 biographical entries, 122,400 entries, and an extensive hierarchical subject index. It is also available in online editions. ''Contemporary Psychology'' described the work as "the largest corpus of knowledge about the social and behavioral sciences in existence." It was first published in 2001, with a 2nd edition published in 2015. The second edition is edited by James D. Wright. Subject Classification Contents include the following broad Subject Classification. Overarching Topics: Institutions and infrastructure, History of the social sciences and the behavioral sciences, Ethics of research and applications, Biographies, Integrative concepts and issues Methodology: Statistics, Mathematics and computer sciences ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Virilio
Paul Virilio (; 4 January 1932 – 10 September 2018) was a French Culture theory, cultural theorist, Urban planning, urbanist, architect and aesthetic philosopher. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military. Virilio was a prolific creator of neologisms, most notably his concept of "dromology", the all-around, pervasive inscription of speed in every aspect of life. According to two biographers, Virilio was a "historian of warfare, technology and photography, a philosopher of architecture, military strategy and cinema, and a politically engaged provocative commentator on history, terrorism, mass media and human-machine relations." Biography Paul Virilio was born in Paris in 1932 to an Italy, Italian communist father and a Catholic Bretons, Breton mother. After being conscripted into the army during the Algerian War, Virilio attended lectures in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Why Our Systems Fail And What We Can Do About It
Why may refer to: * Causality, a consequential relationship between two events * Reason (argument), a premise in support of an argument, for what reason or purpose * Grounding (metaphysics), a topic in metaphysics regarding how things exist in virtue of more fundamental things. * Why?, one of the Five Ws used in journalism Music Artists * Why? (American band), a hip hop/indie rock band formed in Oakland, California, in 2004 ** Yoni Wolf, formerly known by the stage name Why? * Why (Canadian band), a rock band formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1993 * Why?, a 1990s UK folk band, two members of which formed Quench in 2001 Albums * ''Why'' (Baby V.O.X album) or the title song, 2000 * ''Why?'' (Ginger Baker album) or the title song, 2014 * ''Why'' (Prudence Liew album) or the title song, 1987 * ''Why?'' (They Might Be Giants album), 2015 * ''Why?'', by Jacob Whitesides, 2016 * ''Why'', by Moahni Moahna, 1996 * ''Why?'', by the MonaLisa Twins, 2022 EPs * ''Why'' (Discharge EP) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 16:39:13Coordinated Universal Time, UTC (11:39:13a.m. Eastern Time Zone, EST, local time at the launch site). It was the first fatal accident involving an List of space programs of the United States, American spacecraft while in flight. The mission, designated STS-51-L, was the 10th flight for the Space Shuttle orbiter, orbiter and the 25th flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. The crew was scheduled to deploy a commercial communications satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit, in addition to taking schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe into space under the Teacher in Space Project. The latter task resulted in a higher-than-usual media interest in and coverage of the mission; the launch and subsequent disaste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small Is Beautiful
''Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered'' is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumacher's teacher Leopold KohrDr. Leopold Kohr, 84; Backed Smaller States New York Times obituary, 28 February 1994. (1909–1994) advancing small, appropriate technologies, policies, and polities as a superior alternative to the mainstream ethos of "bigger is better". Overlapping environmental, social, and economic forces such as the 1973 energy crisis and popularisation of the concept of globalisation helped bring Schumacher's ''Small Is Beautiful'' critiques of mainstream economics to a wider audience during the 1970s. In 1995 ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Nuclear Event Scale
The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significant information in case of nuclear accidents. The scale is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the moment magnitude scale that is used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident approximately ten times as severe as the previous level. Compared to earthquakes, where the event intensity can be quantitatively evaluated, the level of severity of a human-made disaster, such as a nuclear accident, is more subject to interpretation. Because of this subjectivity, the INES level of an incident is assigned well after the fact. The scale is therefore intended to assist in disaster-aid deployment. Details A number of criteria and indicators are defined to assure coherent reporting of nuclear events by different official authorities. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
