Edited Book
Summarizes State of the Art in Risk Analysis
Timothy McDaniels
(Heinz Ph.D. 1989; EPP Adjunct Faculty) of University
of British Columbia and Mitchell Small (CEE/EPP) have
jointly edited a new book, Risk Analysis and Society:
An interdisciplinary characterization of the field .”
The book is an outgrowth of a three-day Society for Risk
Analysis international symposium held at Airlie House,
outside Washington, DC, in June of 2000. As part of that
effort, NSF provided support for a series of commissioned
papers, which later evolved into the chapters for this
book.
In 12 chapters authored
by 21 leading academics and practitioners, the book provides
a summary of current methods and ideas in characterizing,
analyzing, and managing risks. McDaniels and Small note
that “the collection shows how risk analysis has
evolved from the largely technical disciplines of systems
reliability and health sciences to encompass the full
range of political, legal, economic, and social considerations
that must be addressed when understanding technical systems
and their role in society.
Details on the book
are available at http://titles.cambridge.
org\catalogue.asp?isbn=0521825563.
CEIC Faculty
Stir Grid Controversy
In a series of three
articles and a number of opinion pieces, five faculty
members affiliated with Carnegie Mellon’s Electricity
Industry Center (CEIC) have created significant debate
within electric power circles about the reliability of
the electricity grid (see rEPPrints on page 11).
Jap Apt (EPP/Tepper),
Marija Ilic (ECE/EPP), Lester Lave (Tepper/EPP/Heinz),
Granger Morgan (EPP/ECE/Heinz) and Sarosh Talukdar (ECE)
argue that while a number of things can and should be
done to improve the reliability of the electricity grid,
such as better real time status information and better
control and operator training, the complexity of the system
is so great that the overall level of security can never
be definitively determined. Occasional large cascading
failures are inevitable. The authors argue that greater
emphasis should be directed at preserving vital social
services in the event of blackouts. For example, when
the power goes out, traffic lights stop operating and
traffic snarls in urban cores, making it difficult or
impossible for emergency vehicles to get through. In a
normal blackout, this is a problem. In a blackout associated
with a terrorist event, it could be very serious. However,
with low power LED traffic lights and trickle-charge batteries,
traffic lights could continue to run long after the power
goes out.
A number of traditional
power engineers find these
arguments unpersuasive (see for example quotes from experts
in Peter Fairley, “The Unruly Power Grid,”
IEEE Spectrum , August 2004). They insist that it should
be possible to prevent blackouts and that calls to shift
some attention to sustaining social services in the event
of blackouts are inappropriate.
In the spring of 2004,
an EPP project course explored the vulnerability faced
by the City of Pittsburgh in the event of power outage
(see page 8). More recently the CEIC faculty and graduate
students have prepared a report which explores similar
issues for the State of Pennsylvania arguing that distributed
resources such as combined heat and power systems, and
micro-grids, could help to reduce vulnerabilities. |
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EPP
Heavily Involved in Working to Improve Domestic Security
Faculty and Ph.D. students
in Engineering and Public Policy are addressing a wide range
of technical and social science issues related to protecting
the U.S. from the threats of terrorism. Much of this work
is supported under a core grant from the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation.
Under supervision from
Profs. Baruch Fischhoff (SDS/EPP), Paul Fischbeck (SDS/EPP),
and Keith Florig (EPP), EPP Ph.D. student Matt Dombroski
is exploring how best to assess the situation and communicate
with the public in the case of a radiological event such
as a “dirty bomb.” This work builds on extensive
previous work that Fischhoff has done which suggests that,
with proper communication, members of the public can deal
with terrorist event in a mature and sober way, with a minimum
of panic. As a result of the work he has done on public
communication and public response, Fischhoff was recently
appointed to the Department of Homeland Security Science
and Technology Advisory Committee.
A number of other Ph.D.
students in EPP are undertaking studies on topics that range
from security of chemical manufacturing and transport to
issues in the security of water supply, and issues in privacy
and cyber security. Several other EPP faculty are also pursuing
studies.
Elizabeth Casman (EPP)
is working on issues of early detection of bioattack. In
a paper titled “The Potential of Next- Generation
Microbiological Diagnostics to Improve Bioterrorism Detection
Speed” that appeared in the June 2004 issue of Risk
Analysis , she reports that “screening involving nearly
every interaction with a health care worker would be insufficient
to provide presymptom high-reliability detection”
for attacks involving fewer than 500 victims but holds considerable
promise for attacks that involve 10,000 victims or more.
Prof. Kathleen Carley
(ISRI/EPP) and her collaborators have developed a simulation
model, called BioWar, designed to explore the social network
aspects of a bioattack. Casman has been assisting the group
with some of the biological details of contagion. Carley
and her co-workers also have several large projects underway
that involve the simulation of terrorist networks. In late
June, Carley organized a conference at Carnegie Mellon with
over 100 participants from government, industry and academia
which included workshops on
bioterrorism and covert networks.
Dr. Keith Florig is
working on a set of behavioral and technical aspects of
securing the postal service from biological and chemical
attack.
Investigators in the
Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, a joint effort
of EPP and Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business,
have worked extensively on issues of network security in
the face of accidental and intentionally caused cascading
blackouts. They argue that there is no way to make the power
system entirely secure, and conclude that greater emphasis
should be placed on preserving vital social services (911,
hospital, water, sewers, etc.) when the power goes out.
Last, but certainly
not least, Carnegie Mellon President, Jared Cohon (CEE/EPP)
serves as a member of the Homeland
Security Advisory Council and of the Roundtable on Scientific
Communication and National Security, a joint effort of the
U.S. National Academies and the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. |
