What existential threats does humanity face? And how can we secure our future? 'The Precipice is a powerful book . . . Ord's love for humanity and hope for its future is infectious' Spectator 'Ord's analysis of the science is exemplary . . . Thrillingly written' Sunday Times We live during the most important era of human history. In the twentieth century, we developed the means to destroy ourselves - without developing the moral framework to ensure we won't. This is the Precipice, and how we respond to it will be the most crucial decision of our time. Oxford moral philosopher Toby Ord explores the risks to humanity's future, from the familiar man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war, to the potentially greater, more unfamiliar threats from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence. With clear and rigorous thinking, Ord calculates the various risk levels, and shows how our own time fits within the larger story of human history. We can say with certainty that the novel coronavirus does not pose such a risk. But could the next pandemic? And what can we do, in our present moment, to face the risks head on? A major work that brings together the disciplines of physics, biology, earth and computer science, history, anthropology, statistics, international relations, political science and moral philosophy, The Precipice is a call for a new understanding of our age: a major reorientation in the way we see the world, our history, and the role we play in it.

Mathematical Methods of Environmental Risk Modeling provides a working introduction to both the general mathematical methods and specific models used for human health risk assessment. Rather than being purely an applied math book, this book focuses on methods and models that students and professionals are likely to encounter in practice. Examples are given from exposure assessment, pharmacokinetic modeling, and dose-response modeling.

Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk is the first book that systematically analyzes how catastrophe models can be used for assessing and managing risks of extreme events. It focuses on natural disaster risk, but also discusses the management of terrorism risk. A unique feature of this book is the involvement of three leading catastrophe modeling firms, AIR Worldwide, EQECAT, and Risk Management Solutions, who examine the role of catastrophe modeling in rate setting, portfolio management and risk financing.

Using data from three model cities (Oakland, CA, Long Beach, CA and Miami/Dade County, FLA), experts from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania examine the role of catastrophe modeling to develop risk management strategies for reducing and spreading the losses from future disasters. Given the uncertainties associated with terrorism the book points out the opportunities for utilizing catastrophe models to set insurance rates and to examine public-private partnerships for providing financial assistance in the event of a terrorist attack.

"This book fills a critical need in setting forth the role of modern risk analysis in managing catastrophe risk. There is no comparable reference work for this important subject area. The book is well written and well organized. It contains contributions from many of the most distinguished experts in the fields of risk analysis and risk management. It strikes a good balance between the technical aspects of the subject and the practical aspects of decision making."

"This book is strongly recommended for individuals who must make decisions regarding the management of impacts of catastrophe risks including those in both the public and private sector."

Wilfred D. Iwan
Professor of Applied Mechanics, Emeritus
Director, Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory
California Institute of Technology

"The authors have captured the essence of catastrophe modeling: its value, its utility and its limitations. Every practitioner in the catastrophe risk field should read this book."

Franklin W. Nutter, President
Reinsurance Association of America

Decision making is the oil that greases the wheel of social movement organizing. Done poorly, it derails organizations and coalitions; done well, it advances the movement and may model those changes movements seek to effect in society. Despite its importance, movement decision making has been little studied. Section One makes a singular contribution to the study of social movement decision making through seven focused case studies, followed by a critical commentary. The case studies on decision making cut across a wide breadth of social movement contexts, including Peace Brigades International teams, a feminist bakery collective, Earth First, the NGO Forum on Women, Friends of the Earth, the Tlapanec indigenous movement in Mexico, an on-line strategic voting campaign, and Korean labor movements. The section concludes with Jane Mansbridge's synthesis and critical commentary on the papers, wherein she continues to make her own substantive contributions to the literature on consensus decision making. The three papers in Section Two focus on Northern Ireland, where frustration with inter-community conflict resolution spawned a movement promoting intra-community or 'single tradition' programs. Two chapters provide invaluable comparative studies of the benefits and shortcomings of these counter-movements, while the third paper applies constructive conflict and nonviolent action theories to recent developments in the annual parades disputes. The volume closes with two papers on Native American issues. The first examines an initiative to teach conflict history and build conflict analysis and resolution skills among the Seneca Nation. The final case study of two Native American women's organizations demonstrates how socially constructed identities are critical to movement framing processes and collective actions. With this volume, RSMCC continues its long-standing tradition of publishing cutting edge studies in social movements, conflict resolution, and social change.

The Cold War produced a matrix of Canadian/US extra-governmental military and economic relationships which significantly shaped Canadian political decision-making as it related to the defence of the continent under the auspices of the North American Air/Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD). In the post-cold War era, these relationships continue to effectively support a traditional security agenda for the Canadian government. The rewritten NORAD Agreement, signed in March 1996, is the vehicle for Canadian participation in US missile defence programs worldwide. Paying particular attention to the decisions to adopt a nuclear weapons role for Canada's continental air defence forces, to test the US air-lunched cruise missile in the Canadian North, and to become increasingly involved in active missile and space-based defence programs, the author examines: * the Cold War construction of Canadian/US military and economic relationships * the effects of these relationships on political decision-making * the public discourse as a site of alternative understandings of Canada's role in the Cold War. Ann Denholm Crosby provides a challenging analysis of Canadian defence decision-making in both its Cold war and post-Cold War contexts.

This book will providean accessible account of the key issues involved in risk assessment and management. It will focus on how nurses make decisions about clients and risk, which are essential to quality, safe nursing care. It will draw extensively on case study material gained through research in this area which the authors have undertaken and was commissioned by the English National Board, and will be likely to form the basis for educational requirements in this area in the future.Leading author in this field Link to ENB research which will be used as basis for educational developments in this area Case studies from research provide 'real life' examples from practice Drawn from 3 main areas for nursing risk management i.e. Mental health, learning disabilities, and care of the elderly Reflect multi-professional context of risk

In this book, Mark Jablonowski, author of Precautionary Risk Management: Dealing with Catastrophic Loss Potentials in Business, the Community and Society (Palgrave Macmillan 2006), identifies the potential pitfalls of applying precautionary strategies to high-stakes risks that have already become entrenched. Risk dilemmas result, in which we find ourselves doomed if we do, doomed if we don't. Instead, precaution must be applied on a precautionary basis, considering alternative paths to progress that maintain natural risk levels. Assessing and implementing such alternatives may require a radical rethinking of the way we define progress, and how we go about achieving it. The reward is 'Survival'.

Risk communication helps companies, governments and institutions minimise disputes, resolve issues and anticipate problems before they result in an irreversible breakdown in communications. Without good risk communication and good risk management, policy makers have no roadmap to guide them through unforeseen problems, which frequently derails the best policies and results in a breakdown in communications and a loss of trust on behalf of those they are trying hardest to persuade. Most policy makers still use outdated methods - developed at a time before health scares like BSE, genetically modified organisms and dioxin in Belgian chicken feed eroded public confidence in industry and government - to communicate policies and achieve their objectives. Good risk communication is still possible, however. In this book, through the use of a host of case studies from four countries, the author identifies a series of methods that are set to work in a post trust society.

The growing centrality of risk management in pro-market governance raises important questions regarding how risks are produced, and why? Who and what is included in, and excluded from, risk management, and why? And, what is the relationship between the rise of risk management and neoliberalism? Drawing on various political economy approaches, this volume addresses these questions by examining - both analytically and empirically - diverse meanings and practices of risk management across a range of scales and themes ranging from austerity to climate change to housing and debt. The authors investigate the relationship between shifts in contemporary capitalism and the ways in which neoliberal forms of risk management have emerged, been reproduced and normalized, and, transformed historically.

In our high technology society, there is a growing demand for a better understanding of decision making in high risk situations in order to improve selection, training and operational performance. Decision Making Under Stress presents a state-of-the-art review of psychological theory, in research and practice, on decision making in high pressure and emergency situations. It focuses on the experienced decision makers who deal with such risks, principally on flight decks, at civil emergencies, in industrial settings and military environments. The 29 chapters cover a wide range of perspectives and applications from aviation, military, industry and the emergency services. The authors, all international invited experts in their field, are based in research centers and universities from Europe, North America and Australia. Their common interest is in the theories and methods of a new research domain called NDM (naturalistic decision making). This volume comprises the edited contributions to the Third International NDM conference, sponsored by the US Army Research Institute and the US Naval Air Warfare Center, which was held in Aberdeen, Scotland in September 1996. The NDM researchers are interested in decision making in situations characterised by high risk, time pressure, uncertain goals, ambiguous information and teamwork. The extent to which the NDM approach can explain and predict human performance in such settings is a central theme, discussed with many practical examples and applications. This book is essential reading for applied psychologists, pilots, emergency commanders, military officers, high hazard managers, safety and emergency response professionals.

Today's ever more complex world creates challenges for decision makers. This volume reviews the principles underlying complex decision making, the handling of uncertainties in dynamic environments, and the various modeling approaches. Beginning with a discussion of the underlying concepts, theories and empirical evidence, the book gives you a range of practical tools and techniques for decision making in complex environments and systems.

The purpose of Multiple Criteria Analysis in Strategic Siting Problems is to demonstrate how multiple criteria can be used in analysis of facility location problems. The book begins with an overview, explains the internationally most popular multiple objective analysis methods, and demonstrates their applications on real problems. Siting problems reviewed include nuclear waste disposal in the U.S., solid waste management in Finland, pipeline location in India, and pipeline location in Russia. Methods covered are multiattribute utility analysis, analytic hierarchy process, the ELECTRE outranking method, and verbal decision analysis. The book concludes with a comparative review of methods. The book uses the multi-attribute, multi-party framework of Kunreuther to present the decision context, to include parties with interests in the decisions, as well as the sequence of project events. This perspective is valuable in identifying the qualitative backgrounds of siting problems that need to be considered. The book demonstrates the importance of multiple criteria in hazardous facility site selection. It also shows how each of the four methodologies covered operate, both in terms of demonstration problems worked with numbers, and how these methods have been applied in the real applications. The real applications were taken from refereed journal documentation, with the exception of Russian pipeline analysis decisions in which Professor Larichev participated. The book is recommended for those interested in decision-making involving problems with social import. This includes environmental aspects, as well as international aspects of decision making.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic introduction to the ranking methods for interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets, multi-criteria decision-making methods with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets, and group decision-making methods with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations. Including numerous application examples and illustrations with tables and figures and presenting the authors' latest research developments, it is a valuable resource for researchers and professionals in the fields of fuzzy mathematics, operations research, information science, management science and decision analysis.

This book presents the concept of the double hierarchy linguistic term set and its extensions, which can deal with dynamic and complex decision-making problems. With the rapid development of science and technology and the acceleration of information updating, the complexity of decision-making problems has become increasingly obvious. This book provides a comprehensive and systematic introduction to the latest research in the field, including measurement methods, consistency methods, group consensus and large-scale group consensus decision-making methods, as well as their practical applications. Intended for engineers, technicians, and researchers in the fields of computer linguistics, operations research, information science, management science and engineering, it also serves as a textbook for postgraduate and senior undergraduate university students.

Crisis events are increasingly common. Their impacts are greater--and they are more widely reported in the media--than ever before. They often symbolize tragedy and loss, but they are also the precipitating factors in radical, rapid, and frequently positive social change. Understanding the complex dynamics of these powerful events is imperative for both researchers and managers. Taking a broad view of organizational crisis, the authors synthesize a rich and diverse body of theory, research, and practice and apply it to every kind of crisis imaginable, from oil spills to nuclear disasters, airplane crashes, shuttle explosions, and corporate implosions such as Enron. The "organization" can be anything from a company to a federal bureaucracy or society. Organizational crisis is presented as a natural stage in organizational evolution, creating not only stress and threats but also opportunities for growth and development. Communication is viewed as the pivotal process in the creation and maintenance of organization, and its role is examined here at every stage, from incubation to avoidance, crisis management, and recovery. Researchers, crisis managers, and communications managers will find a wealth of applied theoretical orientations, including chaos theory, sensemaking, organizational learning theory, and more.

In the ideal world, major decisions would be made based on complete and reliable information available to the decision maker. We live in a world of uncertainties, and decisions must be made from information which may be incomplete and may contain uncertainty. The key mathematical question addressed in this volume is "how to make decision in the presence of quantifiable uncertainty." The volume contains articles on model problems of decision making process in the energy and power industry when the available information is noisy and/or incomplete. The major tools used in studying these problems are mathematical modeling and optimization techniques; especially stochastic optimization. These articles are meant to provide an insight into this rapidly developing field, which lies in the intersection of applied statistics, probability, operations research, and economic theory. It is hoped that the present volume will provide entry to newcomers into the field, and stimulation for further research.

Classes of socio-technical hazards allow a characterization of the risk in technology innovation and clarify the mechanisms underpinning emergent technological risk. Emerging Technological Risk provides an interdisciplinary account of risk in socio-technical systems including hazards which highlight: * How technological risk crosses organizational boundaries, * How technological trajectories and evolution develop from resolving tensions emerging between social aspects of organisations and technologies and * How social behaviour shapes, and is shaped by, technology. Addressing an audience from a range of academic and professional backgrounds, Emerging Technological Risk is a key source for those who wish to benefit from a detail and methodical exposure to multiple perspectives on technological risk. By providing a synthesis of recent work on risk that captures the complex mechanisms that characterize the emergence of risk in technology innovation, Emerging Technological Risk bridges contributions from many disciplines in order to sustain a fruitful debate. Emerging Technological Risk is one of a series of books developed by the Dependability Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

In Decision Modelling And Information Systems: The Information Value Chain the authors explain the interrelationships between the decision support, decision modelling, and information systems. The authors borrow from Porter's value chain concept originally set out in the organizational context and apply it to a corporate IS context. Thus data, information and knowledge is seen to be the progressive value added process leading to business intelligence. The book captures key issues that are of central interest to decision support researchers, professionals, and students. The book sets out an interdisciplinary and contemporary view of Decision Support System (DSS).

The first two parts of the book focus on the interdisciplinary decision support framework, in which mathematical programming (optimization) is taken as the inference engine. The role of business analytics and its relationship with recent developments in organisational theory, decision modelling, information systems and information technology are considered in depth. Part three of the book includes a carefully chosen selection of invited contributions from internationally-known researchers. These contributions are thought-provoking and cover key decision modelling and information systems issues.

These chapters include: Arthur Geoffrion on restoring transparency to computational solutions, Bill Inmon on the concept of the corporate information factory, Louis Ma and Efraim Turban on strategic information systems, and Erik Thomsen on information impact and its relationship to the value of information technology.

The final part of the book covers contemporary developments in the related area of business intelligence considered within an organizational context. The topics cover computing delivered across the web, management decision-making, and socio-economic challenges that lie ahead. It is now well accepted that globalisation and the impact of digital economy are profound; and the role of e-business and the delivery of decision models (business analytics) across the net lead to a challenging business environment. In this dynamic setting, decision support is one of the few interdisciplinary frameworks that can be rapidly adopted and deployed to so that businesses can survive and prosper by meeting these new challenges.

Gilboa and Schmeidler provide a new paradigm for modeling decision making under uncertainty. Case-based decision theory suggests that people make decisions by analogies to past cases: they tend to choose acts that performed well in the past in similar situations, and to avoid acts that performed poorly. The authors describe the general theory and its relationship to planning, repeated choice problems, inductive inference, and learning. They highlight its mathematical and philosophical foundations and compare it to expected utility theory as well as to rule-based systems.