Recent legal developments challenge how valid the concept of mental capacity is in determining whether individuals with impairments can make decisions about their care and treatment. Kong defends a concept of mental capacity but argues that such assessments must consider how relationships and dialogue can enable or disable the decision-making abilities of these individuals. This is thoroughly investigated using an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy and legal analysis of the law in England and Wales, the European Court of Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. By exploring key concepts underlying mental capacity, the investigation concludes that both primary relationships and capacity assessments themselves must display key competencies to ensure that autonomy skills are promoted and encouraged. This ultimately provides scope for justifiable interventions into disabling relationships and articulates the dialogical practices that help better situate, interpret, and understand the choices and actions of individuals with impairments.

Classical decision theory evaluates entire worlds, specified so as to include everything a decision-maker cares about. Thus applying decision theory requires performing computations far beyond an ordinary decision-maker's ability. In this book Paul Weirich explains how individuals can simplify and streamline their choices. He shows how different 'parts' of options (intrinsic, temporal, spatiotemporal, causal) are separable, so that we can know what difference one part makes to the value of an option, regardless of what happens in the other parts. He suggests that the primary value of options is found in basic intrinsic attitudes towards outcomes: desires, aversions, or indifferences. And using these two facts he argues that we need only compare small parts of the options we face in order to make a rational decision. This important book will interest readers in decision theory, economics, and the behavioral sciences.

Develop and execute a resilient climate change enterprise risk strategy that can be tailored to any organization with this essential guide for risk professionals and business leaders. Climate Change Enterprise Risk Management equips readers with a practical roadmap for how organizations can integrate climate change into their enterprise risk strategy. It offers guidance on how to secure a robust framework that can identify and manage climate threats and opportunities for a business, how to increase the visibility of climate risk management activities at board level, and how and when to implement techniques such as thresholds, mitigation strategies, monitoring capabilities and risk appetite metrics. The book covers both existing best practice risk management tools and how they can be adapted for climate enterprise risk management as well as new interdisciplinary tools like stakeholder mapping. Climate Change Enterprise Risk Management is richly supported by global examples, interviews and case studies representing a wide range of companies and industries including the insurance, finance, infrastructure, oil and gas, legal and auditing sectors. This is a must-read for all risk professionals and business leaders involved in developing and executing enterprise risk management and strategy. It will also be valuable reading for students taking modules on enterprise risk management and climate change, sustainable business and risk management.

In every decision problem there are things we know and things we do not know. Risk analysis science uses the best available evidence to assess what we know while it is carefully intentional in the way it addresses the importance of the things we do not know in the evaluation of decision choices and decision outcomes. The field of risk analysis science continues to expand and grow and the second edition of Principles of Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty responds to this evolution with several significant changes. The language has been updated and expanded throughout the text and the book features several new areas of expansion including five new chapters. The book's simple and straightforward style-based on the author's decades of experience as a risk analyst, trainer, and educator-strips away the mysterious aura that often accompanies risk analysis. Features: Details the tasks of risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication in a straightforward, conceptual manner Provides sufficient detail to empower professionals in any discipline to become risk practitioners Expands the risk management emphasis with a new chapter to serve private industry and a growing public sector interest in the growing practice of enterprise risk management Describes dozens of quantitative and qualitative risk assessment tools in a new chapter Practical guidance and ideas for using risk science to improve decisions and their outcomes is found in a new chapter on decision making under uncertainty Practical methods for helping risk professionals to tell their risk story are the focus of a new chapter Features an expanded set of examples of the risk process that demonstrate the growing applications of risk analysis As before, this book continues to appeal to professionals who want to learn and apply risk science in their own professions as well as students preparing for professional careers. This book remains a discipline free guide to the principles of risk analysis that is accessible to all interested practitioners. Files used in the creation of this book and additional exercises as well as a free student version of Palisade Corporation's Decision Tools Suite software are available with the purchase of this book. A less detailed introduction to the risk analysis science tasks of risk management, risk assessment, and risk communication is found in Primer of Risk Analysis: Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Second Edition, ISBN: 978-1-138-31228-9.

Highly practical and useful for practitioners - cuts through a highly technical and complex subject in a useable and easy to follow way but without 'dumbing down'. Focuses on the facilitation of risk management, an area that is glossed over or simply ignored in other books on risk management. Brand new chapters on virtual facilitation and the role of group bias in the assessment of risk.

Focusing on what actuaries need in practice, this introductory account provides readers with essential tools for handling complex problems and explains how simulation models can be created, used and re-used (with modifications) in related situations. The book begins by outlining the basic tools of modelling and simulation, including a discussion of the Monte Carlo method and its use. Part II deals with general insurance and Part III with life insurance and financial risk. Algorithms that can be implemented on any programming platform are spread throughout and a program library written in R is included. Numerous figures and experiments with R-code illustrate the text. The author's non-technical approach is ideal for graduate students, the only prerequisites being introductory courses in calculus and linear algebra, probability and statistics. The book will also be of value to actuaries and other analysts in the industry looking to update their skills.

Provides a range of up-to-date case studies to help students understand the real world practice of risk management in organisations Includes an overview situating the subject of risk management in the wider context of corporate governance, aiding student understanding The case studies on Tesco and Birmingham City Council are radically updated to reflect recent controversies, whilst a case study on cyber risk is added for the new edition

This collection of essays deals with the situated management of risk in a wide variety of organizational settings - aviation, mental health, railway project management, energy, toy manufacture, financial services, chemicals regulation, and NGOs. Each chapter connects the analysis of risk studies with critical themes in organization studies more generally based on access to, and observations of, actors in the field. The emphasis in these contributions is upon the variety of ways in which organizational actors, in combination with a range of material technologies and artefacts, such as safety reporting systems, risk maps and key risk indicators, accomplish and make sense of the normal work of managing risk - riskwork. In contrast to a preoccupation with disasters and accidents after the event, the volume as whole is focused on the situationally specific character of routine risk management work. It emerges that this riskwork is highly varied, entangled with material artefacts which represent and construct risks and, importantly, is not confined to formal risk management departments or personnel. Each chapter suggests that the distributed nature of this riskwork lives uneasily with formalized risk management protocols and accountability requirements. In addition, riskwork as an organizational process makes contested issues of identity and values readily visible. These 'back stage/back office' encounters with risk are revealed as being as much emotional as they are rationally calculative. Overall, the collection combines constructivist sensibilities about risk objects with a micro-sociological orientation to the study of organizations.

Risk and reward are always foremost in the determination of investment decisions and business transactions. Advances in the area of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have enabled the development of new business paradigms. Such paradigms involve transactions taking place between loosely connected parties, often totally or partially unknown to one another. One important concept required to ensure such transactions are successful is transactional risk. The importance of doing this has been demonstrated in recent financial crisis. This book is unique in simultaneously taking into account the likelihood of an event occurring and its financial impact and provides an integrated discussion of the process of transactional risk identification, assessment, evaluation, management and recording in these emerging domains. It provides a detailed and clear exposition of the importance of transactional risk before detailing for its assessment and evaluation. The scope of the book is theoretical and practical and as such it will have a broad market both within academia and industry. Specifically this book should be of primary interest to researchers, graduate students and practitioners in the area of developing business intelligence techniques and their application in various real world applications.

The Environmental Management Revision Guide: For the NEBOSH Certificate in Environmental Management is the perfect revision aid for students preparing to take their NEBOSH Certificate in Environmental Management. As well as being a handy companion volume to Brian Waters' NEBOSH-endorsed textbook Introduction to Environmental Management, it will also serve as a useful aide-memoire for those in environmental management roles. The book aims to: Provide practical revision guidance and strategies for students Highlight the key information for each learning outcome of the current NEBOSH syllabus Give students opportunities to test their knowledge based on NEBOSH style questions and additional exercises Provide details of guidance documents publically available that students will be able to refer to. The revision guide is fully aligned to the current NEBOSH syllabus, providing complete coverage in bite-sized chunks, helping students to learn and memorise the most important topics. Throughout the book, the guide refers back to the Introduction to Environmental Management, helping students to consolidate their learning.

This is a reprint of 978-0-901357-47-2 Ergonomics in action: a practical guide for the workplace is a no-nonsense introduction to the principles of workplace ergonomics. The book is very user-friendly and written in a clear, jargon-free style, and gives straightforward explanations and practical examples. Useful summaries at the end of each chapter highlight key points at a glance. The book focuses on ergonomics in the design process, job design and work organisation. It covers specific areas of ergonomic importance; including hand tools, computer use and manual handling, and also addresses the complex and sometimes controversial topic of upper limb disorders. Ergonomics in action also includes a chapter on the basics of anthropometry and offers several practical case studies to illustrate the human and commercial benefits of following good ergonomic principles. As a consultant ergonomist, Celine McKeown has extensive experience of applying the principles of ergonomics to a wide variety of sectors. She also trains, advises and writes on a broad range of ergonomics and health and safety issues.

Risk and reliability analysis is an area of growing importance in geotechnical engineering, where many variables have to be considered. Statistics, reliability modeling and engineering judgement are employed together to develop risk and decision analyses for civil engineering systems. The resulting engineering models are used to make probabilistic predictions, which are applied to geotechnical problems.
Reliability & Statistics in Geotechnical Engineering comprehensively covers the subject of risk and reliability in both practical and research terms
* Includes extensive use of case studies
* Presents topics not covered elsewhere--spatial variability and stochastic properties of geological materials
* No comparable texts available
Practicing engineers will find this an essential resource as will graduates in geotechnical engineering programmes.

Arms Procurement Decision-Making Processes is a comparative analysis of the arms procurement decision-making processes in five countries China, India, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. It examines whether or not national arms procurement processes, even as they involve sensitive security issues and complex systems, can become more responsive to the broader objectives of security and public accountability. The country case studies are based to a large extent on original research papers written by experts from the respective national academic and defence procurement communities.

Faculty recruitment is a major expense for colleges and universities, and schools devote a considerable amount of their resources to the hiring process. But many of these institutions fail to devote the same attention to retaining college professors. We've learned through many studies that it's far less expensive to retain a student you have than to recruit a new one. Why is this lesson not also applied to the college faculty? This book addresses why higher education currently has a faculty retention problem and then explores the strategies needed to address that problem. But now all faculty members are alike. Minority faculty members have their own retention challenges, as do highly competitive researchers, part-time and temporary faculty members who excel at teaching, and other ley groups. The best ways to retain the junior faculty are not necessarily the best ways to retain mid-career and senior faculty. By examining best practices currently in place in higher education, and then combining those insights with research conducted in the corporate world, the book encourages colleges and universities to develop a culture of retention that applies to students and faculty members alike.

Educators and instructional leaders in today's schools are under tremendous pressure and time constraints. They have high stakes requirements to show performance achievement of students in their schools and classrooms. The relentless conflict they face is the task of managing the constant disruptions and challenges that exist in a demanding, answer-now world. We must have the tools to respond to these in an efficient and effective manner, so that we can get back to our most important work: helping students learn and grow into successful young adults. Included in this text are quick references for the busy educator to utilize. They are tools developed over decades by educators who recognize the urgency of their work and how they must not be deflected by aggravations of time consuming, emotionally exhausting challenges. Accompanying anecdotal evidence are time tested and research-based practices. If you have ever experienced the challenges of costly arguments, political motives, or minutiae that steer you away, pick up this book for an account of how to favorably alter this fast and effectively!

Safety and Reliability of Complex Engineered Systems contains the Proceedings of the 25th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2015, held 7-10 September 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland. It includes about 570 papers accepted for presentation at the conference. These contributions focus on theories and methods in the area of risk, safety and reliability, and their applications to a wide range of industrial, civil and social sectors. The main goal of this book is to showcase the advancements in understanding, modeling and management of complex engineered systems. The book offers a multidisciplinary platform to address technological, societal and financial aspects of system safety and reliability. Emphasis is given to the intra- and interdependencies of functions and the cascading failures that characterize complex engineered systems. Safety and Reliability of Complex Engineered Systems (abstracts book 730 pages + full paper CD-ROM 4634 pages) will be of interest to academics and professionals involved or interested in aspect of risk, safety and reliability in various engineering areas.

1) Details the entire lifecycle of a pipeline valve, including design, manufacture, installation and maintenance 2) Explains how to ensure pipeline valves are safe, cost effective and reliable 3) Includes case studies on welding, operation and material selection 4) Explains how to prevent environmental damage and minimise risk

Risk is a major reason that companies fail in, or fail to enter, China. Packed with case studies, this unique book demonstrates how correctly applied due diligence can not only reduce business risk in China, but also provide excellent business intelligence to support negotiations and business relationships.

The premise of this book is that most activity in everyday life and work is based on tasks that are novel, infrequent in our experience, or variable with respect to the action to be taken. Such tasks require decisions to be made and actions taken in the face of ambiguous or incomplete information. Time pressure is frequently great and penalties for failure are severe. Examples include investing in markets, controlling industrial accidents, and detecting fraud. The environments in which such tasks occur defy a definition of optimal performance, yet the benefits of successful decision making are considerable. The authors refer to domains without criteria for optimal performance as competency-based and describe the able behaviour of individuals who work in them by the term competence. The chapters examine the propositions that metacognitive processes give structure to otherwise ill-structured tasks and are fundamental enablers of decision-making performance.

Economic players must often choose between several strategic options in a fierce competitive environment where interactions with competitors make decisions particularly complex. Game theory offers useful insights to choose an optimal decision or at least a basis for making rational decision given the constraints of the stakeholders' environment. In presenting the concepts and the logical structure of the reasoning offered by game theory and their applications, the book explains the rational process of decision making in the framework of firm management and market competition. By avoiding the usual complexity of presentation often due to mathematical formalism, the book proposes a reflection and practical insights of game theory for practitioners (managers, strategists) and social, managerial and economic researchers. The book will expose both general teachings and a comprehensive analysis applied to specific case studies of various sectors of the economy.

This is a reprint of 978-0-901357-47-2 Ergonomics in action: a practical guide for the workplace is a no-nonsense introduction to the principles of workplace ergonomics. The book is very user-friendly and written in a clear, jargon-free style, and gives straightforward explanations and practical examples. Useful summaries at the end of each chapter highlight key points at a glance. The book focuses on ergonomics in the design process, job design and work organisation. It covers specific areas of ergonomic importance; including hand tools, computer use and manual handling, and also addresses the complex and sometimes controversial topic of upper limb disorders. Ergonomics in action also includes a chapter on the basics of anthropometry and offers several practical case studies to illustrate the human and commercial benefits of following good ergonomic principles. As a consultant ergonomist, Celine McKeown has extensive experience of applying the principles of ergonomics to a wide variety of sectors. She also trains, advises and writes on a broad range of ergonomics and health and safety issues.