Browsing by Author "Soane, Emma"
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Item Open Access A decision support approach for group decision making under risk and uncertainty(2010-12-31T00:00:00Z) Li, Jiawei W.; Kendall, Graham; Pollard, Simon J. T.; Soane, Emma; Davies, Graham; Bai, RuibinCost-benefit analysis has long been used in decision making about public health and security. Frequently, risk and uncertainty are involved, and benefit and cost are not evenly shared by all stakeholders in the activities where public welfare is concerned. The result of cost-benefit analysis may be controversial because it does not consider the conflict of interest among the stakeholders. In this paper, we propose a decision support approach that allows individual agents to make their own evaluations of benefit, cost and risk over available alternatives. Individual beliefs with respect to the alternatives will then be aggregated to form a group decision. This approach can also be used to integrate the cost benefit analysis into risk assessment. An application to this group decision making, considering the disposal of dead animals, is given.Item Open Access Engaging with comparative risk appraisals: Public views on policy priorities for environmental risk governance(Wiley, 2016) Rocks, Sophie A.; Schubert, Iljana; Soane, Emma; Black, Edgar; Muckle, Rachel; Petts, Judith; Prpich, George; Pollard, Simon J. T.Communicating the rationale for allocating resources to manage policy priorities and their risks is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that environmental risks have diverse attributes and locales in their effects that may drive disproportionate responses among citizens. When 2,065 survey participants deployed summary information and their own understanding to assess 12 policy-level environmental risks singularly, their assessment differed from a prior expert assessment. However, participants provided rankings similar to those of experts when these same 12 risks were considered as a group, allowing comparison between the different risks. Following this, when individuals were shown the prior expert assessment of this portfolio, they expressed a moderate level of confidence with the combined expert analysis. These are important findings for the comprehension of policy risks that may be subject to augmentation by climate change, their representation alongside other threats within national risk assessments, and interpretations of agency for public risk management by citizens and others.Item Open Access Evidence and belief in regulatory decisions - Incorporating expected utility into decision modelling(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2012-12-31T00:00:00Z) Li, J.; Davies, Gareth J.; Kendall, Graham; Soane, Emma; Bai, R.; Rocks, Sophie A.; Pollard, Simon J. T.Recent changes in the assessment and management of risks has had the effect that greater importance has been placed on relationships between individuals and within groups to inform decision making. In this paper, we provide the theoretical underpinning for an expected utility approach to decision-making. The approach, which is presented using established evidence support logic (TESLA™), integrating the expected utilities in the forming of group decisions. The rationale and basis are described and illustrated through a hypothetical decision context of options for the disposal of animal carcasses that accumulate during disease outbreaks. The approach forms the basis for exploring the richness of risk-based decisions, and representing individual beliefs about the sufficiency of evidence they may advance in support of hypotheseItem Open Access Flood perception and mitigation: The role of severity, agency, and experience in the purchase of flood protection, and the communication of flood information(Pion Ltd, 2010-12-31T00:00:00Z) Soane, Emma; Schubert, Iljana; Challenor, Peter; Lunn, Rebecca; Narendran, Sunitha; Pollard, Simon J. T.Protection of human life and property from flooding is a strategic priority in the UK. We examine how to encourage home owners to protect themselves and their residences. A model of factors that influence the decision to buy flood protection devices is tested using survey data from 2,109 home owners. The results showed that the majority of respondents have not purchased domestic flood protection (N=1,732; 82.1%). Purchase of flood protection devices was influenced by age; perceived seriousness; and beliefs about, and trust in, the role of regulators in managing flooding. In younger respondents, the perceived seriousness of the dangers of flooding acted as precursors and barriers to action depending on individual sense of responsibility and agency. The second part of the study examined responsiveness to information. Information about flooding alone was insufficient to promote behavioural change, particularly among people who have not experienced a flood or who believe that they are not in a flood zone. Implications for understanding flood protection, managing agency issues, and flood communication campaigns are discussed.Item Open Access Human reliability analysis: A critique and review for managers(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z) French, Simon; Bedford, Tim; Pollard, Simon J. T.; Soane, EmmaIn running our increasingly complex business systems, formal risk analyses and risk management techniques are becoming a more important part of a manager's tool-kit. Moreover, it is also becoming apparent that human behaviour is often a root or significant contributing cause of system failure. This latter observation is not novel; for more than 30 years it has been recognised that the role of human operations in safety critical systems is so important that they should be explicitly modelled as part of the risk assessment of plant operations. This has led to the development of a range of methods under the general heading of human reliability analysis (HRA) to account for the effects of human error in risk and reliability analysis. The modelling approaches used in HRA, however, tend to be focussed on easily describable sequential, generally low-level tasks, which are not the main source of systemic errors. Moreover, they focus on errors rather than the effects of all forms of human behaviour. In this paper we review and discuss HRA methodologies, arguing that there is a need for considerable further research and development before they meet the needs of modern risk and reliability analyses and are able to provide managers with the guidance they need to manage complex systems safely. We provide some suggestions for how work in this area should develop.Item Open Access Optimising risk reduction: An expected utility approach for marginal risk reduction during regulatory decision making(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2009-11-30T00:00:00Z) Li, Jiawei W.; Pollard, Simon J. T.; Kendall, Graham; Soane, Emma; Davies, Gareth J.In practice, risk and uncertainty are essentially unavoidable in many regulation processes. Regulators frequently face a risk-benefit trade-off since zero risk is neither practicable nor affordable. Although it is accepted that cost-benefit analysis is important in many scenarios of risk management, what role it should play in a decision process is still controversial. One criticism of cost-benefit analysis is that decision makers should consider marginal benefits and costs, not present ones, in their decision making. In this paper, we investigate the problem of regulatory decision making under risk by applying expected utility theory and present a new approach of cost-benefit analysis. Directly taking into consideration the reduction of the risks, this approach achieves marginal cost- benefit analysis. By applying this approach, the optimal regulatory decision that maximizes the marginal benefit of risk reduction can be considered. This provides a transparent and reasonable criterion for stakeholders involved in the regulatory activity. An example of evaluating seismic retrofitting alternatives is provided to demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Item Open Access Regulators as 'agents': power and personality in risk regulation and a role for agent-based simulation(Taylor & Francis, 2010-12-31T00:00:00Z) Davies, Gareth J.; Kendall, Graham; Soane, Emma; Li, Jin; Charnley, Fiona; Pollard, Simon J. T.We critically examine how evidence and knowledge are brokered between the various actors (agents) in regulatory decisions on risk. Following a precis of context and regulatory process, we explore the role power and personality might play as evidence is synthesised and used to inform risk decisions, providing a review of the relevant literature from applied psychology, agent-based simulation and regulatory science. We make a case for the adoption of agent- based tools for addressing the sufficiency of evidence and resolving uncertainty in regulatory decisions. Referring to other environmental applications of agent- based decision-making, we propose how an agent model might represent power structures and personality characteristics with the attending implications for the brokering of regulatory science. This critical review has implications for the structuring of evidence that informs environmental decisions and the personal traits required of modern regulators operating in facilitative regulatory settings.Item Open Access Regulators as agents: modelling personality and power as evidence is brokered to support decisions on environmental risk(2014-01-01T00:00:00Z) Davies, Gareth J.; Kendall, Graham; Soane, Emma; Li, J.; Rocks, Sophie A.; Jude, Simon R.; Pollard, Simon J. T.Complex regulatory decisions about risk rely on the brokering of evidence between providers and recipients, and involve personality and power relationships that influence the confidence that recipients may place in the sufficiency of evidence and, therefore, the decision outcome. We explore these relationships in an agent-based model; drawing on concepts from environmental risk science, decision psychology and computer simulation. A two-agent model that accounts for the sufficiency of evidence is applied to decisions about salt intake, animal carcass disposal and radioactive waste. A dynamic version of the model assigned personality traits to agents, to explore their receptivity to evidence. Agents with 'aggressor' personality sets were most able to imbue fellow agents with enhanced receptivity (with 'avoider' personality sets less so) and clear confidence in the sufficiency of evidence. In a dynamic version of the model, when both recipient and provider were assigned the 'aggressor' personality set, this resulted in 10 successful evidence submissions in 71 days, compared with 96 days when both agents were assigned the 'avoider' personality set. These insights suggest implications for improving the efficiency and quality of regulatory decision making by understanding the role of personality and power.Item Open Access A role for human reliability analysis (HRA) in preventing drinking water incidents and securing safe drinking water(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2009-05-05T00:00:00Z) Wu, Shaomin; Hrudey, Steve E.; French, Simon; Bedford, Tim; Soane, Emma; Pollard, Simon J. T.The prevalence of water quality incidents and disease outbreaks suggests an imperative to analyse and understand the roles of operators and organisations in the water supply system. One means considered in this paper is through human reliability analysis (HRA). We classify the human errors contributing to 62 drinking water accidents occurring in affluent countries from 1974 to 2001; define the lifecycle of these incidents; and adapt Reason's ‘Swiss cheese’ model for drinking water safety. We discuss the role of HRA in human error reduction and drinking water safety and propose a future research agenda for human error reduction in the water sec