Abstracts (PDF file, 1.8MB) - Society for Risk Analysis

More documents

Recommendations

Info

SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts T4-H.5 Zhang, J*; Zhuang, J; SUNY at Buffalo; jzhang42@buffalo.edu Modeling and validating multi-period, multi-type, and multi-target attacker-defender games We present a novel class of multi-period and multi-target attacker-defender games where the attackers may have different motivations and multiple attacking options including assassination, armed assault, bombing/explosion, facility/infrastructure attack, hijacking, and hostage taking. We validate this model using multiple-year terrorism and defensive investment data including Global Terrorism Database and Urban Areas Security Initiative programs. This research provides some new insights on modeling and validating resource allocation models related to adaptive adversary. P.45 Zheng, JM*; Gilmore, EA; Sarofim, MC; University of Maryland; jzheng12@umd.edu Evaluating the timing of benefits from abatement of short and long lived climate change species Chemical species that affect the climate have different atmospheric lifetimes. Black carbon (BC) only lives in the atmosphere for days to weeks while carbon dioxide (CO2) can exist up to millennia. When the objective of a policy is to reduce the overall damages, a metric that compares the benefits of abatement of two or more climate forcers can be useful. However, it is difficult to compare BC with other greenhouse gases with the commonly used metrics, because those metrics have a flawed approach to considering the lifetime of different species and the associated damages. Here, we compare the relative economic benefits of abatement of a short-lived (BC) and long-lived (CO2) species. To evaluate the benefits of abatement, first, we translate a marginal emission to temperature change using simplified analytical models. We then convert the temperature change to economic damages using a quadratic damage function. We define the marginal emission of a range of climate change emission scenarios, specifically the representative concentration pathways (RCPs). For each scenario, we show how the relative benefits of abatement evolve as a function of time. We then discussed how to apply this damage metric for environmental policies such as emission trading and the associated uncertainties. P.140 Zhu, KJ*; Xu, JH; Peking University; cocojne@pku.edu.cn Public risk perception towards urban air pollution The notorious prevailing hazy days in China in recent winters triggered a public crisis over air quality, while how the public perceives air pollution is meagerly studied. Understanding the public’s perception towards risks is a prerequisite for predicting public responses and designing risk communication strategies and policy interventions. The presented empirical study explores how the public perceive and react to risks posed by urban air pollution in China and what factors affecting their reactions, through an in-depth one-on-one interview approach and qualitative analysis. A convenient sample of 43 diversified respondents in Beijing was recruited with a snow-balling approach. Qualitative analysis of the open-ended interviews based on grounded theory revealed interesting findings. Despite some confusion between concept of air pollution and feeling of temperature and climate, most of the interviewees are aware of the severe air pollution problem in Beijing. However, concerns about air pollution and adverse health effect are attenuated by perceived low risks and individual powerlessness. The participants are also distracted by immediate priorities, e.g. social and economic problems. Many participants have recognized that each individual contributes to the problem, but express great reluctance to change their behaviors. Major barriers to individual engagement in mitigation strategies include a lack of knowledge, a shift of responsibility to the others (next generation, government and industries, etc.), inaction of government, perceived individual powerlessness, and reluctance to sacrifice comfort and convenience. These misunderstandings and barriers are important focuses of future communication strategies and policy interventions, if the public is to be fully involved in mitigating air pollution. It is also suggested that future research should test the prevalence of these phenomena and explore the potential reasons. P.75 Zhu, KJ*; Xu, JH; Peking University; cocojne@pku.edu.cn Public risk perception towards urban air pollution The notorious prevailing hazy days in China in the winter of 2011 and 2012 triggered a public crisis over air quality, while how the public perceives air pollution is meagerly studied. Understanding the public’s perception towards risks is a prerequisite for predicting public responses and designing risk communication strategies and policy interventions. This paper presented an empirical study to explore how the public perceive risks posed by urban air pollution in China and what factors affecting their perception. Existing studies were mostly conducted in other cultural settings, the results of which cannot be borrowed directly in a Chinese setting. Therefore our research begins with an exploratory study using one-on-one in-depth interview to elicit public attitudes towards urban air pollution as well as potential affecting factors. A convenient sample of 43 diversified respondents in Beijing was recruited with a snow-balling approach. Qualitative analysis of the open-ended interviews based on grounded theory revealed interesting findings, such as confusion between air pollution and climate, perceived relationship between economics and air pollution, and high constraint recognition in public involvement. Based on the results of and the preferred wording in the interviews, a confirmative questionnaire is designed to test the prevalence of misconceptions and beliefs, and to test the factors that affecting public risk perception in China. December 8-11, 2013 - Baltimore, MD
SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts P.148 Zhuang, J; Wang, X*; Song, C; Xu, J; University at Buffalo, SUNY; xwang54@buffalo.edu Robust Approval Process in the Face of Strategic Adversaries and Normal Applicants The objective of this project is to explore a new class of decision models to provide structural insights for robust screening when dealing with adaptive applicants and incomplete information. This research is motivated by public concerns on balancing congestion and safety due to security screening. Such screening has been used to identify and deter potential threats (e.g., terrorists, attackers, smugglers, spies) among normal applicants wishing to enter an organization, location, or facility. In-depth screening could reduce the risk of being attacked. However it may also create delays and deter normal applicants, which decreases the welfare of both the approver (authority, manager, screener) and the normal applicants. This research will consider the factors of security, congestion, equity, and the strategic and non-strategic responses from various applicant types. In particular, this research studies the applicants' strategies of applying, reneging, learning, and deceiving. This research also studies the approver's strategies of screening, dynamic service rates, multiple-servers and priority processing, multi-layer screening, and secrecy and deception. If successful, this research will lead to new frameworks that decision makers can use for screening diverse groups of strategic applicants. These new frameworks have the potential to reduce costs, avoid unnecessary waiting and inconvenience, and improve effectiveness and efficiency of the approval processes. Potential applications of this research include immigration systems, job market background checks, and airport/container/border controls. The relevance is illustrated by the recent national debate on selective "pat-downs" and "advanced imaging"screening, and the associated changing travel patterns. This research will engage many graduate, undergraduate, and high school students, including those from under-represented groups. The results of this research will be disseminated broadly to local, national and international communities. P.151 Zhuang, J; Fu, J*; Jose, VRR; University at Buffalo, SUNY; jfu3@buffalo.edu Modeling attacker-defender games with risk preferences Traditional models of attacker-defender games generally assume that players are risk-neutral; i.e. they choose strategies that maximize their expected payoff or benefit. In practice, decision makers could be either risk seeking or risk averse, which has not been extensively studied in the attacker-defender game literature. For example, terrorists could have risk preferences (Yang et al. 2013). Government could be risk averse: Standish (2002) argued that Western governments tend to be extremely risk-avers and constantly introduce disruptive risk-averse policies in many areas such as air travel security; Stewart et al. (2011) stated that the amount of government spending for “many homeland security measures would fail a cost-benefit analysis using standard expected value methods of analysis [suggesting] not surprisingly that policy makers within the US Government /DHS are risk-averse.” Unfortunately, the growing attacker-defender game literature has not rigorously studied the players’ risk preferences. To fill this gap, the research objective of this proposal is to study how the incorporation of alternative models of behavior (e.g., expected utility and cumulative prospect theories) affects the equilibrium behavior of players in attacker-defender games. Though Zhuang and Bier (2007, Operations Research) asserted that the more risk-averse a defender is, the more likely she is to defend and that the less risk-averse an attacker is, the more likely he is to attack, our preliminary results show that this behavior may not be true when other factors such as initial wealth, risk aversion/risk seekingness, loss aversion, and optimism are incorporated into a model. If successful, this project results can enrich our understanding of how players in attacker-defender games when a rich set of empirically recognized aspects of human behavior and decision making is introduced in analytic models, and help transform a large group of existing models which ignore player preferences. P.152 Zhuang, J; Bier, V; Zhang, J*; University at Buffalo, SUNY; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jingzhang42@buffalo.edu First Conference on Validating Models of Adversary Behavior Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on homeland security since September 11, 2001, and numerous models have been developed to study the strategic interactions be tween defenders and adversaries (e.g., attackers or terrorists). Unfortunately, few if any models have yet been validated using empirical data, limiting the application of those models in practice. Supported by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), Drs. Jun Zhuang and Vicki Bier organized a conference on validating models of adversary behavior in Buffalo/Niagara Falls, NY, in June 23-26, 2013. This conference is intended to bridge theoretical and empirical research on adversarial modeling, and facilitate transitioning of the best existing models of adversary behavior into practice by assessing and demonstrating their validity and applicability to real-world problems. A secondary goal of the conference is to encourage synergy and communication between risk analysts, statisticians, economists, and other social scientists engaged in terrorism modeling and research. In this poster presentation, we summarize the summary of the conference findings. T1-I.1 Zimmerman, R; New York University; rae.zimmerman@nyu.edu Network approaches to assess critical infrastructure risks Portraying critical infrastructure characteristics as networks is an important foundation for analyzing risks to these infrastructures from extreme events. Risk and network concepts are combined for critical infrastructure, primarily transportation, with implications for others. Three analyses are presented for infrastructure network changes and adaptations. First, infrastructure age as a risk factor under extreme conditions is analyzed for U.S. bridge collapses involving critical network nodes in bridge structures and system-wide transportation networks. Age and bridge collapse date are correlated and compared to bridge inventory age. Age is significant for function and structural deterioration but not as much for extreme events, since age may not reflect non-age related factors, e.g., design flaws, misuse, and conditional or combined probabilities of separate conditions. Second, transportation users with low incomes may be more vulnerable to disconnected links in transportation systems affecting their mobility to jobs during extreme event travel disruptions. For selected urban areas, percent changes in low income populations are compared to rail transit availability. Third, disaster-related network breakages with widespread impacts on users are identified. For such conditions, network-related risk reduction measures for rail transit are presented, e.g., redundant/alternative routing or links, interconnected nodes, and multiple travel modes. Where transportation disruptions involve energy or water failures, alternatives to strengthen power/transportation nodes and alleviate flooding are examined in networks terms. These findings have widespread implications for network-based infrastructure risk policies for user and system risks in extreme events and climate change disruptions. Findings extend research from the author’s book, Transport, the Environment and Security (2012) and are illustrated using extreme U.S. weather events, including Hurricanes Sandy and Irene. December 8-11, 2013 - Baltimore, MD
Page 1 and 2:
SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts W
Page 3 and 4:
SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts P
Page 5 and 6:
SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts T
Page 7 and 8:
SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts M
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88: SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts P
Page 89 and 90: SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts M
Page 91 and 92: SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts W
Page 93 and 94: SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts T
Page 137: SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts M
show all

Abstracts (PDF file, 1.8MB) - Society for Risk Analysis

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?