Each semester when the schedule of classes are posted, I often find myself perusing the listing to pick out those courses offered at the University Park campus of Penn State that seem like they would be helpful for improving my understanding of  risk and risk analysis.  I don’t actually plan on taking any of these.  But so far I picked out the following from the undergraduate (and graduate) course catalog:

• B A 497: Risk and Decisions (3): Conceptualizing decisions involving risk, analyzing choices, estimating the risk, and communicating the analysis
• CMPSC 443 Introduction to Computer and Network Security (3): Introduction to theory and practice of computer security with an emphasis on Internet and operating system applications [Sp09, TR 1615-1730]
• EARTH 101: Natural Disasters: Hollywood vs. Reality (3): Analysis of the causes and consequences of natural disasters; comparison of popular media portrayal of disasters with perspective from scientific research [Sp09, TR 945-1100]
• ENNEC 473: Risk Management in Energy Industries (3): Analysis of strategies for mitigating business risk from market, atmospheric, geophysical uncertainties including the use of energy/mineral commodity futures/options, weather derivatives, and insurance [Sp09, TR 945-1100]
• FIN 413: Risk Management and Financial Institutions (3): Measuring and managing risk faced by financial institutions.
• GEOSC 402Y: Natural Hazards (3): Case studies of the causes and consequences of natural disasters; analysis of disaster impact in different economic, cultural, and social conditions [Sp09, MWF 1010-1100]
• HLS 410: Public Health Preparedness for Disaster and Terrorist Emergencies (3): Analyzes the history of terrorism and explores the preparation and response to specific terrorist threats, natural disasters, and conventional catastrophes.
• I E 454: Applied Decision Analysis (3): Theory and practice of decision analysis applied to engineering problems.
• I H S 470: Analytical Methods for System Safety (3): Quantitative and qualitative methods of system safety of analysis are covered; issues in risk assessment, acceptance, analysis, and communication, as well as accident cost analysis and cost-benefit analysis are included.
• INS 301: Risk and Insurance (3): Introduction to the principles and methods of handling business and personal risks; emphasis on insurance techniques.
• INS 405: Corporate Risk Management (3): Insurance management for corporate organizations; self-insurance, risk transfer, and other alternatives to insurance.
• INS 575: Risk Management (2): Develop an understanding of the risks facing corporations and the methods available to deal with those risks.
• IST 564: Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management (3): Examines the fundamental elements of crisis, disaster, risk and emergency management. Emphasis is placed on the use of analytic methods and information technologies to prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from the effects of naturally-occurring (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes, diseases) and anthropic hazards (e.g., industrial accidents, malicious attacks).
• M E 446: Reliability and Risk Concepts in Design (3): Introduction to reliability mathematics. Failure data collection and analysis. Components and systems reliability prediction. Effects of maintenance on reliability. Risk Analysis. Case studies in engineering applications.
• METEO 460: Weather Risk and Financial Markets (3): This course will introduce the role that weather plays as a source of financial and operational risk for businesses, market and other institutions [Sp09, TH 1115-1230]
• METEO 476: Atmospheric Natural Disasters Seminar (3): Survey of naturally occurring, catastrophic meteorological events, including severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, aviation hazards, floods, and severe winter storms.
• P ADM 401: Introduction to Homeland Security (3): This course provides foundational knowledge about homeland security, including policy, organization, and legal issues in the American context.
• P ADM 404: Homeland Security and Defense in Practice (3): This course analyzes, evaluates, and critiques homeland security plans in practice.
• SCM 456: Supply Chain Risk Analysis (3): Business processes are modeled as a network of queues using discrete-event simulation and analyzed model outcomes using statistical methods.
• SRA 311: Risk Management: Assessment and Mitigation (3): Assessment and mitigation of security vulnerabilities for people, organizations, industry sectors, and the nation.

Note that I included IST and SRA courses for completeness.  Of course there are plenty other courses of interest to me, such as a pair on creative problem solving in the systems engineering program, one on biological networks in the physics department (PHYS 597B), one on game theory in the economics department, and a host of others.

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A few days ago I had the privilege of shopping at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet in State College, PA.  While perusing the numerous books, games, and such on sale at what I thought were extremely discounted prices, I came across an interesting miniature guide on the weather entitled The Rough Guide to Weather by Robert Henson (ISBN: 1-85828-827-4) sitting adjacent to the Discovery Channel videos.  The book was only $10, so I figured why not buy it and add it to my reference collection on naturally-occurring events.  And now having had an opportunity to flip through the book and absorb its contents, I am very glad I made I made this purchase.

The Rough Guide is divided into six sections as follows:

• “The Ingredients” section describes all the “actors” and associated phenomenologies on the weather stage, to include the sun, wind, atmosphere, ocean, earth, climate zones, and so on.  This section has very interesting factoids about how weather affected humans from before the “age of observing,” explanations of what the atmosphere is, how light is diffracted to form rainbows, “where the wind goes,” and so on.  Basically, in fewer than 50 pages the author provides a layman’s summary of how the Earth’s weather system works.
• “The Wild Stuff” section describes in detail weather hazards (which by the way are only hazards because humans label them as such; without humans there to suffer loss, these “weather hazards” are merely “weather events”).  The events considered include rain, snow, freezing rain and sleet, fog, thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, hurricanes and tropical cyclones, coastal storms, other windstorms, floods, drought, El Niño and La Niña.  The author provides a thorough, yet accessible, description of each event type supplemented with informative pictures and tone box asides.
• The “Forecasts and How to Read Them” section provides a brief description of the role of weather forecasts in society and how its role and supporting technologies evolved over the past few centuries.  In addition, this section offers advice on how to interpret weather forecasts and warnings with some detail on the how weather predictions come about.
• “A Primer on Global Climate Change” provides a short, but sweet, discussion on how rising temperatures will affect weather and people.  Nothing too significant here that you couldn’t get in better detail elsewhere.
• The “Weather from Around the World” section is perhaps the most useful part of this whole book.  This section provides a narrative account of the weather for 200 destinations worldwide.  But this book provides more than facts and figures; the author provides a concise and highly informative meteorological story for each destination that may include reference to its history, geography, demographics, size, climate, and so on.  Basically, this section of the book makes for a handy reference to a country intelligence or risk analyst interested in environmental hazards for their target.  I will provide three short country story excerpts to show you what I mean:

Syria. Syria epitomizes Middle Eastern climate, with a Mediterranean wet-winter regime on the coast and a desert that spans most of the country east of a narrow strip of coastal mountains. Damascus is part of the Fertile Crescent, a transition zone near the Lebanon border that just gets enough moisture to keep the desert at arm’s length.  Winters are chilly in the mountains and adjacent plateau, with a bout of rain once or twice a week and a day or two of snow possible in Damascus.  Snows are more heavy and frequent a high elevations.  The rains stop from June through August, which are hot by day but relatively cool by night – except across the deserts, where even the nights sizzle in midsummer.  Winter in the deserts can bring a few days of light rain and even an occasional dusting of snow. (pp. 288-289)

Nigeria. Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria has a climate regime similar to that of the Guinea-coast nations to its west, as the ITCZ brings wet weather northward from March to May and southward from October to December.  Only the extreme north is semi-arid in classic Sahel style, while parts of the lower Niger delta are drenched with more than 3000mm/118in of rain each year.  The Lagos area is the least sodden trench of coastline, though its humidity – and the heat radiating from urban sprawl – help maintain a sticky atmosphere year round.  The immediate coast experiences a major dry period in winter with heaviest rains in late spring and early summer, followed by a brief dry spell around August and a second pulse of rain into October.  Harmattan dust storms are a perennial winter problem, especially toward the north. (p. 307)

Maldives. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the Maldive’s climate isn’t local but global.  The slow worldwide rise in sea level threatens to inundate much of this island nation within the next century.  There’s little high ground here: the tallest atolls barely top 2m/6ft.  Since the Maldives straddle the equator, wet seasons vary, but they tend toward summer half of the year.  Temperatures hardly vary at all, staying sultry even for a tropical locale.  Only the northernmost Maldives are at risk from tropical cyclones. (p. 336)

• Finally, the “Resources” section provides a list of classic (e.g., Aristotle) and modern references for the budding meteorologist, a list of websites for meteorological organizations and worldwide weather agencies, a discussion of the impact of weather on health (infectious disease, sunburn, etc.), and a few tables that aid in converting pressure, temperature, and windspeed between different measurement systems.

I must say that this book is not bad for $10.  But if you want this book, I wouldn’t run to Ollie’s just yet.  A quick search on Amazon revealed to me at least one seller willing to part with this book for a quarter ($0.25).  On Alibris one could order this book for $1.99 (+ shipping).  Of course these prices are for used copies of the book, though they still may be in pristine condition (I am doubtful about the 25-cent copy, though).

As far as credibility goes, the “Acknowledgments” section on the front-side of the third sheet of paper (not numbered) states that this book has been reviewed by quite a large number (say >50, but I didn’t count the names listed) of scientists and experts in weather science from around the globe.  However, the books lacks any actual bibliographic citations and offers minimal information on the author’s credentials save for a very uninformative blurb on the rear cover telling the reader than “Robert Henson is a meteorologist.”  Thus, we are left having to accept the fact that the book is published in the wake of expert criticism as evidence of its credibility.  But was the decision to publish contingent on favorable reviews from all, or perhaps even a majority of experts?  Or was it up to the author to simply appeal to experts on his own, selectively choose weather to accept the feedback, and then submit a final draft that may or may not be accurate?  While I have no reason to suggest that the book is inaccurate, additional meta-data on the author and publication processes would enable me to increase my subjective confidence in the credibility of this reference.

Oh, and if you are as excited as I am about meteorology, check out the meteorology certificate program at the USDA Graduate School.  For the cost of 25 credit-hours of class (and all that entails in terms of time and lost opportunities, and price per credit hour), anyone can acquire the intuition for meteorological events.  The good news for engineers, scientists, and many other college course takers (current or retired) is that the credit-burden is only 21-credits if you have already completed a course in differential and integral calculus.  The remaining courses in physical, satellite, dynamic, and synoptic meteorology, however, are probably ones we all have to take regardless of background (meteorology majors excluded).

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(Note this article references my previous post entitled “Gustav and New Orleans: A Political Risk Assessment for the Republican Decision Maker” dated Saturday, 08-30-08, and “UPDATE: Gustav and New Orleans: A Political Risk Assessment for the Republican Decision Maker” dated Sunday, 08-31-08).

Events are rapidly unfolding.  According to the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center Advisory Number 31:

• The center of Gustav is not poised to strike New Orleans when the storm makes landfall.

• New Orleans will experience at least tropical storm force winds, and perhaps hurricane force winds depending on whether the storm veers slightly east (note this information was derived from a procedure, whether visually or computationally, that the NHC labels as “experimental”).

• And, New Orleans, with a probability [90%, 100%] will experience a storm surge.

• Gustav, however will, with near certain likeliness, be a category 3 storm or less (>96% chances), with category 2 being the most likely storm intensity.  Since the storm will likely not hit New Orleans dead on and at landfall the storm will be weaker than Katrina (which was a category 3 storm when it hit New Orleans dead on), the effects of Gustav will most likely not be as bad Katrina.

Assessment Revisited

Because there is no question at this point that New Orleans is set to experience an appreciable storm surge due to the forces of Gustav, I revised the possibility tree to exclude scenarios E7 (i.e., Pr(A2) = 0; Pr(A1) = 1) and E1 through E3 (i.e., Pr(B1) = 0; Pr(B2) = 1) as follows:

All other probabilities remain unchanged (even if they are irrelevant given that their conditionals are no longer deemed plausible).  Thus, I revised my probability estimates for the remaining scenarios as follows:

Recall from my previous post that the political outcomes for scenarios E4 through E6 (which I leave unchanged) is as follows:

• E4: “-”
• E5: “-”
• E6: “++”

Now, with both consequence and likeliness in hand, the political risk profile charactering the uncertainty associated with near-term political outcomes can be illustrated as follows:

Summary of Results

Based on my revised risk profile derived from all assumptions implicit in the scope of this analysis, the most likely scenario is that the Republicans will benefit from Gustav, at least in the near term.  In fact, the analysis assigns odds of 19:1 in favor of the Republicans.  Perhaps this is the reason that Time Magazine is posing the question “McCain to Seize the Stormy Moment?“  But, the CCAN blog notes that Gustav is another example of extreme weather afflicting an nation in denial.  Perhaps the Democrats can spin this whole situation their way by emphasizing Republican denial of global warming, citing Gustav as “evidence” in support of the global warming is real hypothesis.  My particular analysis, however, does not look into this issue.

Now, given that my conclusions rely on fewer assumptions than with my previous analysis, I assign MODERATE CONFIDENCE to this analysis.  This is the highest level of confidence I can assign given the time I have available for analysis and my level of expertise in the subject.  I must remind readers here that the scope of this analysis is focused on the NOHPS, and does not consider the likeliness and political outcomes for some other non-New Orleans disaster (that could have been prevented by something designed and installed to prevent it).

I think the next post on this subject will come when Gustav is done.  Let’s see what happens…

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(Note this article references my previous post entitled “Gustav and New Orleans: A Political Risk Assessment for the Republican Decision Maker” dated Saturday, 08-30-08).

Revision of Likeliness Estimates

According to the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Gustav is veering to the right (albeit slightly) of yesterday’s projected storm track centerline (see below).  Moreover, the National Weather Service has deemed it sufficiently likely that Gustav will significantly impact New Orleans that it has issued a Hurricane Warning to the city and points all along the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines (and a little bit of Alabama too).  Accordingly, I revise my probability estimate for the event that Gustav will afflict New Orleans in an appreciable way (in terms of storm surge) as follows:

• Pr(A1) = 0.75 (increase from yesterday’s 0.50)
• Pr(A2) = 0.25 (corresponding decrease from yesterday)

Note that I did not use Bayes’ Theorem to update my probability estimates, but rather did a complete reassessment of the probability.  Also note I continue to entertain non-zero chances that the storm will not afflict New Orleans since the storm track envelope admits some degree of likeliness to the storm veering to the west.

Now let’s turn out attention to the time Gustav makes landfall.  According to the right-most figure above, the storm center will probably make landfall sometime between 7AM CDT and 7PM CDT on Monday, 08-31-08.  According to the maximum wind speed probability table (NWS advisory 28, dated 10AM CDT, 08-31-08), the chances that Gustav will be a category 3 storm or greater is [37%, 81%].  Since Katrina was a category 3 storm, lets assume that if Gustav is classified as a category 3 storm or greater at landfall AND the storm is one that is slated to yield an appreciable storm surge affecting the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System, then Gustav will be as bad or worse than Katrina.  Otherwise, it will not be.  With this information, I can revise my probability estimates as follows:

• Pr(B1|A1) = [37%, 81%] (probability that Gustav will be as bad or worse than Katrina)
• Pr(B2|A1) = [19%, 63%] (probability that Gustav will not be as bad or worse than Katrina)

Since the other events C1, C2, D1, and D2 have to do with the integrity of the NOHPS (which is assumed to have not changed in the last day) and the consequences to New Orleans in the event of NOHPS failure (also assumed to be unchanged), the revised probability for the scenarios E1 through E7 is as follows:

Revised Consequence Assessment

The press recently reported to Republican decisions that, though most likely pursued for unselfish and humanitarian reasons (as they should), can also be viewed as strategies to decrease the potential for unfavorable outcomes and increase the potential for favorable outcomes.  These are as follows:

• As stated by White House Press Secretary Dana Perino (cited by CNN and elsewhere), President Bush and Vice President Cheney will not attend the Republican National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota in person; instead, Bush may address the convention via satellite.
• As reported by CNN (link), RNC organizers are examining options to change the schedule of the convention, to include delaying opening ceremonies, turning the convention into a massive telethon, or postponing the convention altogether.

In the context of this study, these measures may very well decrease the severity of the resulting political fall-out in the event of a NOHPS failure, but perhaps not by much because after all, the NOHPS failed despite having three years to rebuild.  On the flip side, if Gustav does afflict New Orleans in an appreciable way (again with respect to storm surge along the NOHPS), and the NOHPS successfully protects the city, then the Republicans will surely emphasize the improved ability of the federal government (under the Bush administration) to prepare for and protect against natural perils.  In this case, more of the same might not be viewed as being all that bad with respect to domestic preparedness (and perhaps by extension, homeland security).  But now, in the event that Gustav does not afflict New Orleans, the political fallout is slightly in favor of the Republicans since they are taking preventive measures to protect the Gulf coast across the board, and you can’t deny that doing a good job at this by putting the people first (which I argue they will do) will garner some brownie points from the electorate.

Given the above, I revise my political outcome assessment as follows:

• E1: unchanged at  “–”
• E2: unchanged at “-”
• E3: unchanged at “++”
• E4: unchanged at “–”
• E5: unchanged at “-”
• E6: improved to “++”
• E7: improved to “+” (may change back to “N” if the Democrats can somehow display on a national stage that they are doing something too)

Given the revised likeliness and political outcome assessments above, the revised risk profile over the space of political outcomes is as follows:

Revised Results

Based on the revised risk profile above, we can draw the following revised conclusions:

• The most likely major scenario is that the Republicans will benefit from Gustav [86%, 93%]
• The must less likely scenario is that the Republican campaign will suffer from the effects of Gustave [7%, 14%]
• It seems at this point that Republicans will feel something given that the probability of a neutral or “no effect” outcome is near zero at this stage

From the Democrat perspective, one strategy to mitigate the Democrat risk is to do something that will gain them visibility on the national stage in relation to Gustav preparedness.  A visible substantial effort may serve to transfer some of the Republican benefits resulting from scenario E7 back to the neutral position (I doubt they can do much to pull any support in their favor for this scenario).  But even still, given the probability assessment being what it is, the ordering of the major scenarios will remain unchanged.

CAVEAT: Given the probabilistic nature of my assessment, the only verifiable portion of my assessment is whether or not the neutral outcome is realized.  But this requires me to stand by my assessment in light of new information (which I am sure to come across).  I suspect that I will find myself updating this analysis again sometime in the next day or so.

Note: as stated in my previous post, I assign LOW CONFIDENCE to this analysis given that I am not an expert in hydrodynamics, nor am I an expert in politics and political sentiment.

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ALERT: Hurricane Gustav is fast approaching the Gulf Coast.  According to the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, the center of this storm may make landfall Tuesday morning.   As of right this second (as reported via CNN Breaking News), the maximum sustained windspeed at some measured point in the storm system is 145 mph, thus making it a Category 4 storm according to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale.  In terms of damage from wind and not including the effects of any ensuing storm surge, a category 4 storm can be qualitatively described as one that “produces more extensive curtainwall failures, with some complete roof structural failure on small residences. Heavy, irreparable damage and near complete destruction of gas station canopies and other wide span overhang type structures are also common. Mobile and manufactured homes are leveled. These hurricanes cause major erosion of beach areas and terrain may be flooded well inland as well” (as described on Wikipedia).

So, can we label Gustav as a natural peril?  What about as a natural hazard or natural disaster?  How can we classify Gustav right now?

A Comparison of Phrases for Bad Things

By its very nature, any tropical cyclone, hurricanes being a class of meterological events, is a natural peril.  According to the first few definitions that popup for the word “peril” on Answers.com, a peril is an “exposure to possible harm” or “something that endangers.”  Simply put, a peril is an event that can yield undesired outcomes to an individual or group of individuals exposed to its effects (whether to their person or their interests).  Irrespective of whether any particular hurricane afflicts some degree of harm on any particular individual, a hurricane is always a peril since its harmful agents (e.g., wind, water) are inherently damaging.  That is, whether or not a particular event is a peril depends on the characteristics of the event itself, and not of the individuals in its path.

In slight contrast, a “hazard” is a “possible source of danger” (also taken from Answers.com), where the word “possible” means that such an event can occur without indicating any degree of probability and the word danger indicates the event is an “instance of peril” (i.e., exposure in a specific context).  Whether or not an natural peril is also labeled as a natural hazard is a human-centric decision that depends on whether such an event can possibly afflict the individual charged with passing such judgment.  For example, in the eye of a New Orleans decision maker, a hurricane is, in fact, a natural hazard since past experience has proven such events to cause significant amounts of damage.  In contrast, a Mineapolis decision maker might not label hurricanes as a natural hazard in their decision space due to their infrequency in occurrence, and even if they did, the event would be of such low intensity that would make it indistinguishable from a routine thunderstorm.  Yet in both cases, a hurricane is still a natural peril.

At this point, I will restate that a natural peril is a naturally-occuring event whose characteristics would cause damage to an exposed asset, and a natural hazard is a naturally occuring event with the potential to cause harm to a particular individual.  Whether a naturally-occuring event is a peril depends on its objective characteristics, and whether it is a natural hazard depends on whether a particular individual is exposed to its effects and the individual’s subjective judgment of whether its effects are in fact damaging.  (bear in mind that I am using the word individual rather loosely, where it may be a single person or a person speaking on behalf of a number of people).

As with natural hazards, whether or not an event is a natural disaster is also in the eye of the person afflicted by the occurrence of such events.  The key difference between natural hazards and natural disasters is time – a natural disaster is typically a label assigned to a specific event that has actually caused “disastrous” damage (again, a subjective judgment), whereas a natural hazard is a label assigned to a event that has not yet afflicted the individual.

The Gustav Example

So let’s look at Hurricane Gustav from the point of view of a New Orleans decision maker (NODM).  As with any hurricane, by its very nature Gustav is a natural peril.  From the point of view of the NODM, Gustav is a natural hazard in that it is a possible source of danger to New Orleans given its current position and estimated trajectory.  In contrast, decision makers in Raleigh might not label Gustav a natural hazard since the chances are near-zero percent that its effects will afflict North Carolinan interests.  But can the NODM label Gustav as a natural disaster?  The answer is no, well, at least not yet.  Gustav has yet to afflict any damage, let alone damage of disastrous proportions on New Orleans.  Thus it is not (yet) a natural disaster from the NODM point of view.

But it is sensible to assign a probability to Gustav becoming a natural disaster based on the estimates of its trajectory and energy profile (from NWS) and the resistance of the New Orleans “system” to Gustav’s damage inducing effects.  In the particular example of New Orleans, the questions that will enable such an assessment is how high the ensuing storm surge at points along the hurricane protection system (i.e., levees, flood walls, and gates) will be (a function of storm position and intensity), the resistance of the HPS to the load imparted by the storm surge, whether the gates will actually be closed and whether the pumps will actually work, and what property and how many people are within the path of flood waters resulting from a breach.  Let me tell you, this is not an easy analysis (and I am speaking from experience having participated in the modeling and risk assessment of the New Orleans system as part of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, where I think my title was something like “Risk Modeler”).

Afterthought

Given where we are in time right now, I can’t help but speculate on the impact Gustav will have on the upcoming US presidential election.  Three outcomes are possible – Gustav will have no effect, Gustav will have a positive effect on the Republican platform (irrespective of candidate), or Gustav will have a negative effect on the Republican platform.  But at this point I wrote more than enough, and I defer this discussion to a later post.

Next up… Gustav and New Orleans: A Political Risk Assessment for the Republican Decision Maker.

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For those of you doing research into anything that requires a literature review, it pays to check out the types of work your Chinese research counterparts have published on in the Chinese academic literature.  There are two really good full-text databases out there for Chinese academic journals:

• Wanfang Data: According to the Wanfang data website, “as an affiliate of Chinese Ministry of Science & Technology, Wanfang Data has been the leading information provider in China since 1950s. With a wide range of database resources and value-added services, Wanfang Data has become a gateway to understand Chinese culture, medicine, business, science, etc.”  I personnally find this particular database to be very user friendly and English-language friendly.  The problem is that I don’t know of any scholarly institution with access.
• CNKI – This database is way more comprehensive in scope than Wanfang Data, but is less English-language friendly.  In order to navigate this website well, the user should become well acquainted with Babelfish, but be prepared to do a lot of copy-paste actions from the CNKI browser window to a separate Babelfish window.  Oh, and as it turns out, the Library of Congress has onsite access to this database and much (but not all) of its holdings.

In a literature review search of both Wanfang Data (trial access) and CNKI (at the Library of Congress) I completed in early 2007, I came across the following papers on risk analysis for terrorism and natural hazards published in Chinese journals (citations and abstracts provided, but pardon the grammatical errors as they are just translations).  Let me caveat this list by saying it is by no means guaranteed to be complete; rather, it is limited to hits obtained from those articles that were (a) searchable and available, (b) had english translations of the abstract stored in the database, and (c) retrievable using the small set of english search terms I used.

> Zhang, Z., Wu, Z. and Liu, M. (2004). “A Case Study on Mitigating the Risk of Terror Attack.” China Safety Science Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 95-97.

Terrorists usually take advantage of alternative forms of network structure to avoid being monitored and tracked by the security services, and to operate a terror attack by sudden swarm of cluster through immergence of passive supporters. Conventional counter-terrorist forces such as military and police will face a greater challenge in trying to suppress the terrorism with multi-originated feature. East Turkistan terrorist issue is taken as a case to simulate and analyze the evolution mechanism of a given regional terror attack threat, using physical concept of percolation. The feasibility to mitigate the risk of terror attack by non-destructive measures is theoretically analyzed.

> Fan, M. (2002). “The Risk Management in American Security Management System after “9.11″ Event and its Enlightenment to China.” Journal of the Shandong Public Security College, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 63-66.

After “911″ event, US government extensively and thoroughly tried to carry out risk management methods in security management system in order to block the security loophole and to prevent terrorism attack. After one year in practice, not only has the counter-terrorism object been achieved, but also obtains good social effects on safe production, crime prevention, and public security enhancement. This is an important enlightenment to our security management in relative areas. [WLM Comment: I must admit, I am intrigued by this abstract; if only I could read the full-text of the paper...]

> Wang, Z. and Liu, M. (2006). “Application of Quantitative Risk Assessment on Terrorist Attack.” China Public Security, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 18-22.

In this paper, the development of quantitative risk assessment is reviewed, and the way to quantify and assess the terrorism attack is purposed. In the quantitative assessment procedure, according to the information obtained, the summary of previous similar events, and the expert opinions, the data are quantitatively analyzed to obtain the most likely attack target, the threat characteristics, and attack circumstance. Fault tree and event tree are used to analyze the threat model and the system weakness, respectively, and then the attack consequence and the most weakness of the attack target can be obtained. A theoretical basis is provided for making effective decisions under terrorism threat, and a stadium is analyzed as an example.

> Wu, Z. and Zhang, Z. (2005). “Progress of Risk Assessment for Terror Attacks on Industrial Facilities.” Journal of Safety Science and Technology, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 3-7.

While the terrorism actions are getting rampant increasingly all over the world, the terror attack, as an important risk factor, should be studied thoroughly not only for academic profile but also for maintaining social security and stability. The terror attack is planned and issued by the terrorists themselves, and its hazard source – terrorist have their own self-determination. Logically predicting the risk of terror attack has become a new issue in the field of safety science. Both home and abroad progress on related researches were reviewed in detail. It is suggested that security vulnerability assessment and security management system be implemented on important industrial and public facilities.

> Yu, J. and Yang, H. (2004). “Characteristics of Modern Terrorism and Safeguard Strategy.” JOURNAL UNKNOWN, Vol. 6, pp. 11-14.

Modern terrorism has brought severe challenge for the globe. The international society hasn’t come to common for the terrorism law definition. Terrorism in the new period has a series of obvious characteristics. Through analyzing the characteristics, the importance of scientific evaluating on terrorism has been put forward and a series of relative protecting job strategy.

> Zhang, S., Tian, D. and Wu, J. (2006). “Simple Probabilistic Method for Relative Risk Evaluation of Nuclear Terrorism Events.” Nuclear Power Engineering, Vol. 27, No. 6, pp. 74-81.

Based upon event tree and probabilistic methods, a simple probabilistic method for risk evaluation of nuclear terrorism events is purposed in this paper. Four types of damage of a single nuclear terrorism event are analyzed. Since nuclear terrorism events have never happened, relative data of potential nuclear terrorism events are rare. Upon relevant potential events and hypothesis base, relative probabilities and relative risks of four modes causing nuclear terrorism events are deductively analyzed. The analysis results show that these four damage modes are, from severe to mild, using nuclear explosion equipment, using simple nuclear explosion equipment, attacking nuclear facilities, and using “dirty bomb.” According to the hypothetical premise, the probabilities of occurrence from high to low are using “dirty bomb,” attacking nuclear facilities, using simple nuclear explosion equipment, and using nuclear explosion equipment, and the risks of nuclear terrorism events caused by the four modes mentioned above are, from severe to mild, using “dirty bomb,” using simple nuclear explosion equipment, attacking nuclear facilities, and using nuclear explosion equipment.

> Zhao, G., Liu, M., Zhang, Q., Yang, Y. and Wang, L. (2006). “Terror Attack Risk Assessment of Subway Station Based on Game Theory.” Journal of Safety and Environment, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 47-50.

The present paper aims to introduce the authors’ analysis of the terrorist attack risks with the 22 stations of certain subway line and the model of the probability estimate of the target losses developed by the paper. As we know, once an attack was attempted, losses would occur with a probability of such and such, and so and so. Such probability of target loss can be worked out through the calculation of the change of the defended resources, which provide optimal allocation of the defended resources to the subway station under study and the structure of the counter-terrorism emergency plan. However, since the terrorist risks differ from the natural disasters for their particular nature of the ill intent of their instigators. As a consequence, game theory can be used as an important analytic tool. And in turn, such attacks on the subway stations can be regarded as zero-sum game between attacker and defender.

> Chen, W., Jiang, Q., Cao, Y. and Han, Z. (2005). “Risk Based Vulnerability Assessment in Complex Power Systems.” Power System Technology, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 12-17.

Based on probability theory the risk theory was applied to the vulnerability assessment of power system. Here, the power system was defined as a vulnerable system and a set of risk indices to assess the power system vulnerability and corresponding algorithm were built, thus the defects of traditional deterministic security assessment method, which cannot satosfy the requirement of electricity market and complicated power grid, could be overcome. On this bases, a risk theory and risk indices based power system vulnerability assessment software was developed. Taking the New England test system for example, the effectiveness and advanced property of the presented method were proved.

> Chen, Y., Liu, X. and Ren, F. (2002). “Disaster Risk Analysis of Transportation Infrastructure System.” Journal of Highway and Transportation Research and Development, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 79-82.

When natural disaster, atrocious weather or accident happens, transportation system may close down and result in travel cost increasing or some travel being called off. Depending on the structure of user cost and the traffic demanding and distribution model, the estimation method of the unit user cost is proposed in the paper. The sum of the user cost and the remedy cost constitute the disaster loss or consequence, which is the function of closing time, usability of other circuitious road and the remedy measure. Depending on the probability of disaster happening and according consequence, the disaster risk is assessed. In the meantime, several common anti-disaster measures are suggested, which can deduce the road closing probability or according loss. Depending on the cost-benefit analysis of different anti-disaster measures, the anti-disaster plan can be decided.

> Ren, L. (1999). “Advance in Risk Analysis for Natural Hazards.” Advances in Earth Science, Vol. 14, No. 3.

In this paper, the author first discusses the meaning of regional natural disaster’s risk and introduces the possibility risk in detail, pointing out that risk has different meaning in insurance business and disaster study. Then the author reviews the content of risk analysis of regional natural disasters and the mathematical models of risk assessment. The risk analysis is classified into three steps, risk recognition , risk estimation, and risk assessment and the mathematical models into three types, extreme risk model, probability risk model and possibility risk model. Nextly, the possibility risk model for analyzing regional disaster risk are reviewed thoroughly. Finally, the problems to be studied further for regional natural disasters risk analysis , the regional natural disaster mechanism , the method for recognizing regional natural disaster risk, and the method of regional vulnerability analysis, are proposed.

I hope this listing helps better communicate what some Chinese researchers are doing in this area of risk analysis for homeland security.  Note: If anyone is willing to help me translate these papers, send me an email/comment.  Also, if you know of any other Chinese papers on the subject, or perhaps papers on the subject from other non-Western countries, let me know.

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