Skip to main content

Ioannis Dokas

Followers

34

Following

39

Public Views

University of Zagreb

Uppsala University

University of East London

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

University of Leicester

Gwen Robbins Schug

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso

University of Salamanca

Macquarie University

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Swansea University

Uploads

Papers by Ioannis Dokas

RiskSOAP: Introducing and applying a methodology of risk self-awareness in road tunnel safety

Accident; analysis and prevention, 2016

Complex socio-technical systems, such as road tunnels, can be designed and developed with more or... more Complex socio-technical systems, such as road tunnels, can be designed and developed with more or less elements that can either positively or negatively affect the capability of their agents to recognise imminent threats or vulnerabilities that possibly lead to accidents. This capability is called risk Situation Awareness (SA) provision. Having as a motive the introduction of better tools for designing and developing systems that are self-aware of their vulnerabilities and react to prevent accidents and losses, this paper introduces the Risk Situation Awareness Provision (RiskSOAP) methodology to the field of road tunnel safety, as a means to measure this capability in this kind of systems. The main objective is to test the soundness and the applicability of RiskSOAP to infrastructure, which is advanced in terms of technology, human integration, and minimum number of safety requirements imposed by international bodies. RiskSOAP is applied to a specific road tunnel in Greece and the ...

Benchmarking ISO Risk Management Systems to Assess Efficacy and Help Identify Hidden Organizational Risk

Sustainability

The overall aim of this article is to contribute to the further development of the area of benchm... more The overall aim of this article is to contribute to the further development of the area of benchmarking in risk management. The article introduces a two-step benchmarking model to assess the efficacy of ISO risk management systems. It furthermore aims at verifying its usefulness in terms of finding hidden risk issues and improvement opportunities. The existence of all key elements of an ISO 31000-based risk management system is examined at the beginning of this study. Then, the quality in terms of efficacy of important aspects of the risk management system is examined in more detail with special benchmarks. The application of the model to six ISO-certified organizations follows and reinforces the novelty of this study, which is to combine risk science knowledge with benchmarking theory in the application of ISO risk management standards in organizations. The results show that the benchmarking model developed in this study provides rigor when assessing and evaluating the efficacy of ...

Enhancing Disaster Response for Hazardous Materials Using Emerging Technologies: The Role of AI and a Research Agenda

Engineering Applications of Neural Networks, 2019

Despite all efforts like the introduction of new training methods and personal protective equipme... more Despite all efforts like the introduction of new training methods and personal protective equipment, the need to reduce the number of First Responders (FRs) fatalities and injuries remains. Reports show that advances in technology have not yet resulted in protecting FRs from injuries, health impacts, and odorless toxic gases effectively. Currently, there are emerging technologies that can be exploited and applied in emergency management settings to improve FRs protection. The aim of this paper is threefold: First, to conduct scenario analysis and situations that currently threat the first responders. Second, to conduct gap analysis concerning the new technology needs in relations to the proposed scenarios. Third, to propose a research agenda and to discuss the role of Artificial Intelligence within it.

A New Application of Domain Specific Modeling Towards Implementing an EarlyWarning Service

Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Model-Driven Architecture and Modeling Theory-Driven Development, 2010

Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) has been used for a while in many scenarios, case studies, and app... more Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) has been used for a while in many scenarios, case studies, and applications successfully. This paper intends to present a new application of DSM for facilitating an Early Warning Service (EWS). The knowledge about risks and its representation is an important factor for any EWS. The challenge is to help the users be closer to the understanding of the associated risks and to facilitate them with a new software application so as to provide the ability of risk analysis, we propose in this paper a novel application of using Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) in deploying EWS. The paper presents a case study in which there is a need to develop an EWS for the personnel of institutions involved in the drinking water delivery governance model in the Republic of Ireland.

Towards Developing Dependable Systems Suitable for Crisis Management Applications

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2017

Response in crisis situations retains important risk mainly due to increased amount of unpredicta... more Response in crisis situations retains important risk mainly due to increased amount of unpredictable conditions at the incident scenery. Efficient management of such hazardous events necessitates the utilization of autonomous systems capable of operating in a dependable manner without placing the human life in danger. To achieve this, the design of rescue and exploration systems should retained increased operational capabilities, yet coupled with multilevel dependability. The paper at hand, aims to identify the different level of dependabilities that such a system should retain in order to operate in various crisis situations, while at the same time will provide conceptual solutions on how the different dependability levels can be endowed to the system. Moreover, it is proved that the endowed dependability should be maintained iteratively during the system’s lifespan by exploiting systems’ theory techniques preserving system’s dependable behavior in crisis management situations.

A View on the Web Engineering Nature of Web Based Expert Systems

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Software and Data Technologies, 2006

The Web has become the ubiquitous platform for distributing information and computer services. Th... more The Web has become the ubiquitous platform for distributing information and computer services. The tough Web competition, the way people and organizations rely on Web applications, and the increasing user requirements for better services have raised their complexity. Expert systems can be accessed via the Web, forming a set of Web applications known as Web based expert systems. This paper supports that the Web engineering and expert systems principals should be combined when developing Web based expert systems. A development process model will be presented that illustrates, in brief, how these principals can be combined. Based on this model, a publicly available Web based expert system called Landfill Operation Management Advisor (LOMA) was developed. In addition, the results of an accessibility evaluation on LOMA-the first ever reported on Web based expert systems-will be presented. Based on this evaluation some thoughts on accessibility guidelines specific to Web based expert systems will be reported.

A call to incorporate systems theory and human factors into the existing investigation of harm in clinical research involving healthcare products

British journal of clinical pharmacology, Jan 6, 2017

This is a joint statement from individual pharmacology and pharmaceutical professionals acting in... more This is a joint statement from individual pharmacology and pharmaceutical professionals acting in their own capacity, including members of the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES) and the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP). By building on the extensive pharmacological and regulatory investigations that already take place, we are calling for a fuller and more robust systems-based approach to the independent investigation of clinical research when serious incidents of harm occur, starting with first-in-human clinical trials. To complement existing activities and regulations, we propose an additional approach blending evidence derived from both pharmacological and organizational science, which addresses human factors and transparency, to enhance organizational learning and continuous improvement. As happens with investigations in other sectors of society, such as the chemical and aviation sector, this systems approach should be seen as an addition...

Landfill operation reliability management based on fuzzy expert systems

Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2005

A Fuzzy expeit system is developed and presented in this paper, suitable for landfill operation m... more A Fuzzy expeit system is developed and presented in this paper, suitable for landfill operation management- While, fuzzy logic has already been applied to landfill design, on the other hand it has not been applied to landfill operation management. The contribution of this paper is, therefore, to demonstrate a novel application of fuzzy logic in a critical and very complex

Functional Relationships of Landfill and Landraise Capacity with Design and Operation Parameters

Waste Management & Research, 2004

Solid waste management presses for effective landfill design and operation. While planning and op... more Solid waste management presses for effective landfill design and operation. While planning and operating a landfill (LF) or a landraise (LR), choices need to be made regarding: (1) LF-LR morphology (base shape, side slopes, final cover thickness, LR/LF height/depth); (2) cell geometry (height, length, slopes); and (3) operation parameters (waste density, working face length, cover thicknesses). These parameters affect LF/LR capacity, operation lifespan and construction/operation costs. In this paper, relationships are generated between capacity ( C, space available for waste) and the above parameters. Incorporating real data into simulation runs, two types of functions are developed: first, C = kγ A1.38, where A is the LF/LR base area size and kγ a base shape-dependent coefficient; and second, C = αp,γ, A+ δp,γ, A Xp for every parameter p, where Xp is the value of p and αp,γ, A and δp,γ,A are parameter-and base (shape/size)-specific coefficients. Moreover, the relationship between L...

Supporting State Agencies in Providing Early Warning Services

Examining Global and Regional Responses to Disasters, 2011

Developing web sites for web based expert systems: a web engineering approach

Proceedings of the 2nd international ICSC symposium …, 2005

... focusing on the challenges behind the development, operation and maintenance of at least fair... more

A knowledge acquisition process to analyse operational problems in solid waste management facilities

Waste Management & Research, 2006

The available expertise on managing and operating solid waste management (SWM) facilities varies ... more The available expertise on managing and operating solid waste management (SWM) facilities varies among countries and among types of facilities. Few experts are willing to record their experience, while few researchers systematically investigate the chains of events that could trigger operational failures in a facility; expertise acquisition and dissemination, in SWM, is neither popular nor easy, despite the great need for it. This paper presents a knowledge acquisition process aimed at capturing, codifying and expanding reliable expertise and propagating it to non-experts. The knowledge engineer (KE), the person performing the acquisition, must identify the events (or causes) that could trigger a failure, determine whether a specific event could trigger more than one failure, and establish how various events are related among themselves and how they are linked to specific operational problems. The proposed process, which utilizes logic diagrams (fault trees) widely used in system sa...

Design of landfill daily cells

Waste Management & Research, 2001

The objective of this paper is to study the behaviour of the landfill soil-to-refuse (S/R) ratio ... more The objective of this paper is to study the behaviour of the landfill soil-to-refuse (S/R) ratio when size, geometry and operating parameters of the daily cell vary over realistic ranges. A simple procedure is presented (1) for calculating the cell parameters values which minimise the S/R ratio and (2) for studying the sensitivity of this minimum S/R ratio to variations in cell size, final refuse density, working face length, lift height and cover thickness. In countries where daily soil cover is required, savings in landfill space could be realised following this procedure. The sensitivity of minimum S/R to variations in cell dimensions decreases with cell size. Working face length and lift height affect the S/R ratio significantly. This procedure also offers the engineer an additional tool for comparing one large daily cell with two or more smaller ones, at two different working faces within the same landfill.

Integration of field chemical data in initial risk assessment of forest fire smoke

Science of The Total Environment, 2007

A risk assessment framework was used to assess the risks of forest fire smoke (ffs) to the expose... more A risk assessment framework was used to assess the risks of forest fire smoke (ffs) to the exposed communities, critical infrastructures and the environment. The present work is focused on the planning and problem formulation phases of this risk assessment procedure. Specifically, as part of the problem formulation phase, integration of the available ffs chemical data was carried out by answering critical questions regarding the ffs. In this way, critical factors have been identified, which mostly define and characterize ffs as a cause of problems and possible symptoms. The integrated information can be used in order to determine assessment endpoints, conceptual models, and risk hypotheses, as presented in an indicative example referred to a simple risk scenario. This work, enhanced with additional risk scenarios, can be used for the next phases of the risk assessment procedure, such as risk analysis and risk characterization. Future research needs for adequate evaluation of ffs impacts on communities, infrastructures, and the environment are also discussed.

Setting the Specification Framework of an Early Warning System Using IDEF0 and Information Modeling

iscram.org

Our goal is to develop an Early Warning System for an engineering system with a special interest ... more Our goal is to develop an Early Warning System for an engineering system with a special interest in applying this to a material recovery facility. This ongoing research points out that there is no clear definition of what Early Warning Systems are. A literature search for Early Warning Systems identifies hundred of thousands hits (Buchanan-Smith, 1999; Davies, Buchanan-Smith, Lambert, 1991). Almost all of the references had to do with financial systems for third world countries, tracking the destructive nature of violent conflicts that led to human suffering, or systems for syndromic surveillance. The goal of our research, and of this paper, is to define a framework for creating a specification that can be considered as the basis for the development of any Early Warning System-specifically for engineering systems. Therefore, we will describe Early Warning Systems and its requirements and specifications. Based on specification patterns, we have developed an abstract model of an Early Warning System; and developed an IDEF0 model of a material recovery facility that provides the framework for specifying an Early Warning System. The Early Warning System is then specified using information modeling.

An Efficient Fuzzy Expert System Architecture for Landfill Operation Reliability Management

Journal of Intelligent Systems, 2008

caracterizada por un ambiente original de bosque tropical caducifolio, en su mayor parte ahora re... more caracterizada por un ambiente original de bosque tropical caducifolio, en su mayor parte ahora reemplazado por grandes extensiones con producción agrícola y ganadera, se realizó la presente investigación en los ejidos de Francisco Villa, Cuauhtémoc, El Jardín y la ciudad de Villaflores, pertenecientes al municipio de Villaflores. En parcelas agrícolas se hicieron recolectas sistemáticas, diurnas y nocturnas, de escarabajos adultos durante los meses de mayo a septiembre de 2006. Se obtuvieron 6,780 ejemplares, que representan a cuatro subfamilias, ocho tribus, 17 géneros y 46 especies. Los géneros con mayor número de especies e individuos fueron Phyllophaga, Diplotaxis y Ligyrus; junto con los escarabajos de los géneros Cyclocephala, Anomala y Strigoderma cubren el 88.7 % de la abundancia total. Se incluye una lista actualizada de las 368 especies de Melolonthidae registradas en el estado de Chiapas.

Fault tree analysis and fuzzy expert systems: Early warning and emergency response of landfill operations

Environmental Modelling & Software, 2009

In this paper we argue that Early Warning Systems for engineering facilities can be developed by ... more In this paper we argue that Early Warning Systems for engineering facilities can be developed by combining and integrating existing technologies and theories. As example, we present an efficient integration of fuzzy expert systems, fault tree analysis and Worldwide Web technologies to their application in the development of the Landfill Operation Management Advisor (LOMA), a novel early warning and emergency response system for solid waste landfill operations. The aim of LOMA is to provide assistance to landfill managers on their efforts in preventing accidents and operational problems and to help them to develop emergency response plans if these operational problems shall occur. Additional aim is to disseminate information and knowledge to the public on landfill operational problems and their adverse effects. This aim is related to solid waste organizations that have to accord with legislations which are similar to the European Union's EC Directive (2003/4/EC) on Public Access to Environmental Information. When using LOMA, the user first describes the working conditions at the landfill. Then, based on this description, LOMA informs user about the potential operational problems. Afterwards, it analyzes the operational problems in more detail and it estimates the possibility of their occurrence. Finally, it provides advice on how to prevent them and how to respond if any of them occurs. This paper thoroughly investigates LOMA development as well as its integral methodologies and validates it by outlining its performance in test cases that were performed by experts during the operation of a real landfill as well as in test cases extracted from a specially constructed database with synthetic events.

Representing river system behaviour in UML to enhance development of DSS

Water management decisions often have far reaching consequences for the every day life of the inh... more Water management decisions often have far reaching consequences for the every day life of the inhabitants of a river basin. To take these consequences into account during decision making processes, we aim to develop a software tool that can indicate the expected effects of different management strategies on a number of river functions. This requires knowledge domain representation that fits the perception of stakeholders, and at the same time provides a starting point for modelling. We found that UML provides a language that on the one hand facilitates the communication and is intuitively understood, and on the other hand provides a high level of consistency as well as decomposition into elements that can easily be modelled. Moreover, UML provides the space required to deal with both quantitative and qualitative information, which is desirable to incorporate knowledge of different scientific fields / disciplines.

On Using Software As a Service to Deploy An Early Warning Service

International Conference on …, 2009

This paper was motivated by the involvement of the au-thors in a case study aiming at deploying a... more

Knowledge Acquisition and Risk Analysis in Material Recovery Facilities by a Virtual Team

Information Technologies in Environmental Engineering

A knowledge acquisition process that has been implemented by a virtual team for the development o... more A knowledge acquisition process that has been implemented by a virtual team for the development of a knowledge based early warning system in Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) operations will be presented. During the process, hazard and risk analysis techniques have been used extensively. In this paper emphasis will be given on the: a) activities and workflow, b) communication methods and tools used, c) the model of collaboration The result was to acquire and codify the complicated picture of the events, which are acting as triggering mechanisms to a number of operational problems, incidents and accidents during MRFs operations.

RiskSOAP: Introducing and applying a methodology of risk self-awareness in road tunnel safety

Accident; analysis and prevention, 2016

Complex socio-technical systems, such as road tunnels, can be designed and developed with more or... more Complex socio-technical systems, such as road tunnels, can be designed and developed with more or less elements that can either positively or negatively affect the capability of their agents to recognise imminent threats or vulnerabilities that possibly lead to accidents. This capability is called risk Situation Awareness (SA) provision. Having as a motive the introduction of better tools for designing and developing systems that are self-aware of their vulnerabilities and react to prevent accidents and losses, this paper introduces the Risk Situation Awareness Provision (RiskSOAP) methodology to the field of road tunnel safety, as a means to measure this capability in this kind of systems. The main objective is to test the soundness and the applicability of RiskSOAP to infrastructure, which is advanced in terms of technology, human integration, and minimum number of safety requirements imposed by international bodies. RiskSOAP is applied to a specific road tunnel in Greece and the ...

Benchmarking ISO Risk Management Systems to Assess Efficacy and Help Identify Hidden Organizational Risk

Sustainability

The overall aim of this article is to contribute to the further development of the area of benchm... more The overall aim of this article is to contribute to the further development of the area of benchmarking in risk management. The article introduces a two-step benchmarking model to assess the efficacy of ISO risk management systems. It furthermore aims at verifying its usefulness in terms of finding hidden risk issues and improvement opportunities. The existence of all key elements of an ISO 31000-based risk management system is examined at the beginning of this study. Then, the quality in terms of efficacy of important aspects of the risk management system is examined in more detail with special benchmarks. The application of the model to six ISO-certified organizations follows and reinforces the novelty of this study, which is to combine risk science knowledge with benchmarking theory in the application of ISO risk management standards in organizations. The results show that the benchmarking model developed in this study provides rigor when assessing and evaluating the efficacy of ...

Enhancing Disaster Response for Hazardous Materials Using Emerging Technologies: The Role of AI and a Research Agenda

Engineering Applications of Neural Networks, 2019

Despite all efforts like the introduction of new training methods and personal protective equipme... more Despite all efforts like the introduction of new training methods and personal protective equipment, the need to reduce the number of First Responders (FRs) fatalities and injuries remains. Reports show that advances in technology have not yet resulted in protecting FRs from injuries, health impacts, and odorless toxic gases effectively. Currently, there are emerging technologies that can be exploited and applied in emergency management settings to improve FRs protection. The aim of this paper is threefold: First, to conduct scenario analysis and situations that currently threat the first responders. Second, to conduct gap analysis concerning the new technology needs in relations to the proposed scenarios. Third, to propose a research agenda and to discuss the role of Artificial Intelligence within it.

A New Application of Domain Specific Modeling Towards Implementing an EarlyWarning Service

Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Model-Driven Architecture and Modeling Theory-Driven Development, 2010

Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) has been used for a while in many scenarios, case studies, and app... more Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) has been used for a while in many scenarios, case studies, and applications successfully. This paper intends to present a new application of DSM for facilitating an Early Warning Service (EWS). The knowledge about risks and its representation is an important factor for any EWS. The challenge is to help the users be closer to the understanding of the associated risks and to facilitate them with a new software application so as to provide the ability of risk analysis, we propose in this paper a novel application of using Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) in deploying EWS. The paper presents a case study in which there is a need to develop an EWS for the personnel of institutions involved in the drinking water delivery governance model in the Republic of Ireland.

Towards Developing Dependable Systems Suitable for Crisis Management Applications

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2017

Response in crisis situations retains important risk mainly due to increased amount of unpredicta... more Response in crisis situations retains important risk mainly due to increased amount of unpredictable conditions at the incident scenery. Efficient management of such hazardous events necessitates the utilization of autonomous systems capable of operating in a dependable manner without placing the human life in danger. To achieve this, the design of rescue and exploration systems should retained increased operational capabilities, yet coupled with multilevel dependability. The paper at hand, aims to identify the different level of dependabilities that such a system should retain in order to operate in various crisis situations, while at the same time will provide conceptual solutions on how the different dependability levels can be endowed to the system. Moreover, it is proved that the endowed dependability should be maintained iteratively during the system’s lifespan by exploiting systems’ theory techniques preserving system’s dependable behavior in crisis management situations.

A View on the Web Engineering Nature of Web Based Expert Systems

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Software and Data Technologies, 2006

The Web has become the ubiquitous platform for distributing information and computer services. Th... more The Web has become the ubiquitous platform for distributing information and computer services. The tough Web competition, the way people and organizations rely on Web applications, and the increasing user requirements for better services have raised their complexity. Expert systems can be accessed via the Web, forming a set of Web applications known as Web based expert systems. This paper supports that the Web engineering and expert systems principals should be combined when developing Web based expert systems. A development process model will be presented that illustrates, in brief, how these principals can be combined. Based on this model, a publicly available Web based expert system called Landfill Operation Management Advisor (LOMA) was developed. In addition, the results of an accessibility evaluation on LOMA-the first ever reported on Web based expert systems-will be presented. Based on this evaluation some thoughts on accessibility guidelines specific to Web based expert systems will be reported.

A call to incorporate systems theory and human factors into the existing investigation of harm in clinical research involving healthcare products

British journal of clinical pharmacology, Jan 6, 2017

This is a joint statement from individual pharmacology and pharmaceutical professionals acting in... more This is a joint statement from individual pharmacology and pharmaceutical professionals acting in their own capacity, including members of the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES) and the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP). By building on the extensive pharmacological and regulatory investigations that already take place, we are calling for a fuller and more robust systems-based approach to the independent investigation of clinical research when serious incidents of harm occur, starting with first-in-human clinical trials. To complement existing activities and regulations, we propose an additional approach blending evidence derived from both pharmacological and organizational science, which addresses human factors and transparency, to enhance organizational learning and continuous improvement. As happens with investigations in other sectors of society, such as the chemical and aviation sector, this systems approach should be seen as an addition...

Landfill operation reliability management based on fuzzy expert systems

Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2005

A Fuzzy expeit system is developed and presented in this paper, suitable for landfill operation m... more A Fuzzy expeit system is developed and presented in this paper, suitable for landfill operation management- While, fuzzy logic has already been applied to landfill design, on the other hand it has not been applied to landfill operation management. The contribution of this paper is, therefore, to demonstrate a novel application of fuzzy logic in a critical and very complex

Functional Relationships of Landfill and Landraise Capacity with Design and Operation Parameters

Waste Management & Research, 2004

Solid waste management presses for effective landfill design and operation. While planning and op... more Solid waste management presses for effective landfill design and operation. While planning and operating a landfill (LF) or a landraise (LR), choices need to be made regarding: (1) LF-LR morphology (base shape, side slopes, final cover thickness, LR/LF height/depth); (2) cell geometry (height, length, slopes); and (3) operation parameters (waste density, working face length, cover thicknesses). These parameters affect LF/LR capacity, operation lifespan and construction/operation costs. In this paper, relationships are generated between capacity ( C, space available for waste) and the above parameters. Incorporating real data into simulation runs, two types of functions are developed: first, C = kγ A1.38, where A is the LF/LR base area size and kγ a base shape-dependent coefficient; and second, C = αp,γ, A+ δp,γ, A Xp for every parameter p, where Xp is the value of p and αp,γ, A and δp,γ,A are parameter-and base (shape/size)-specific coefficients. Moreover, the relationship between L...

Supporting State Agencies in Providing Early Warning Services

Examining Global and Regional Responses to Disasters, 2011

Developing web sites for web based expert systems: a web engineering approach

Proceedings of the 2nd international ICSC symposium …, 2005

... focusing on the challenges behind the development, operation and maintenance of at least fair... more

A knowledge acquisition process to analyse operational problems in solid waste management facilities

Waste Management & Research, 2006

The available expertise on managing and operating solid waste management (SWM) facilities varies ... more The available expertise on managing and operating solid waste management (SWM) facilities varies among countries and among types of facilities. Few experts are willing to record their experience, while few researchers systematically investigate the chains of events that could trigger operational failures in a facility; expertise acquisition and dissemination, in SWM, is neither popular nor easy, despite the great need for it. This paper presents a knowledge acquisition process aimed at capturing, codifying and expanding reliable expertise and propagating it to non-experts. The knowledge engineer (KE), the person performing the acquisition, must identify the events (or causes) that could trigger a failure, determine whether a specific event could trigger more than one failure, and establish how various events are related among themselves and how they are linked to specific operational problems. The proposed process, which utilizes logic diagrams (fault trees) widely used in system sa...

Design of landfill daily cells

Waste Management & Research, 2001

The objective of this paper is to study the behaviour of the landfill soil-to-refuse (S/R) ratio ... more The objective of this paper is to study the behaviour of the landfill soil-to-refuse (S/R) ratio when size, geometry and operating parameters of the daily cell vary over realistic ranges. A simple procedure is presented (1) for calculating the cell parameters values which minimise the S/R ratio and (2) for studying the sensitivity of this minimum S/R ratio to variations in cell size, final refuse density, working face length, lift height and cover thickness. In countries where daily soil cover is required, savings in landfill space could be realised following this procedure. The sensitivity of minimum S/R to variations in cell dimensions decreases with cell size. Working face length and lift height affect the S/R ratio significantly. This procedure also offers the engineer an additional tool for comparing one large daily cell with two or more smaller ones, at two different working faces within the same landfill.

Integration of field chemical data in initial risk assessment of forest fire smoke

Science of The Total Environment, 2007

A risk assessment framework was used to assess the risks of forest fire smoke (ffs) to the expose... more A risk assessment framework was used to assess the risks of forest fire smoke (ffs) to the exposed communities, critical infrastructures and the environment. The present work is focused on the planning and problem formulation phases of this risk assessment procedure. Specifically, as part of the problem formulation phase, integration of the available ffs chemical data was carried out by answering critical questions regarding the ffs. In this way, critical factors have been identified, which mostly define and characterize ffs as a cause of problems and possible symptoms. The integrated information can be used in order to determine assessment endpoints, conceptual models, and risk hypotheses, as presented in an indicative example referred to a simple risk scenario. This work, enhanced with additional risk scenarios, can be used for the next phases of the risk assessment procedure, such as risk analysis and risk characterization. Future research needs for adequate evaluation of ffs impacts on communities, infrastructures, and the environment are also discussed.

Setting the Specification Framework of an Early Warning System Using IDEF0 and Information Modeling

iscram.org

Our goal is to develop an Early Warning System for an engineering system with a special interest ... more Our goal is to develop an Early Warning System for an engineering system with a special interest in applying this to a material recovery facility. This ongoing research points out that there is no clear definition of what Early Warning Systems are. A literature search for Early Warning Systems identifies hundred of thousands hits (Buchanan-Smith, 1999; Davies, Buchanan-Smith, Lambert, 1991). Almost all of the references had to do with financial systems for third world countries, tracking the destructive nature of violent conflicts that led to human suffering, or systems for syndromic surveillance. The goal of our research, and of this paper, is to define a framework for creating a specification that can be considered as the basis for the development of any Early Warning System-specifically for engineering systems. Therefore, we will describe Early Warning Systems and its requirements and specifications. Based on specification patterns, we have developed an abstract model of an Early Warning System; and developed an IDEF0 model of a material recovery facility that provides the framework for specifying an Early Warning System. The Early Warning System is then specified using information modeling.

An Efficient Fuzzy Expert System Architecture for Landfill Operation Reliability Management

Journal of Intelligent Systems, 2008

caracterizada por un ambiente original de bosque tropical caducifolio, en su mayor parte ahora re... more caracterizada por un ambiente original de bosque tropical caducifolio, en su mayor parte ahora reemplazado por grandes extensiones con producción agrícola y ganadera, se realizó la presente investigación en los ejidos de Francisco Villa, Cuauhtémoc, El Jardín y la ciudad de Villaflores, pertenecientes al municipio de Villaflores. En parcelas agrícolas se hicieron recolectas sistemáticas, diurnas y nocturnas, de escarabajos adultos durante los meses de mayo a septiembre de 2006. Se obtuvieron 6,780 ejemplares, que representan a cuatro subfamilias, ocho tribus, 17 géneros y 46 especies. Los géneros con mayor número de especies e individuos fueron Phyllophaga, Diplotaxis y Ligyrus; junto con los escarabajos de los géneros Cyclocephala, Anomala y Strigoderma cubren el 88.7 % de la abundancia total. Se incluye una lista actualizada de las 368 especies de Melolonthidae registradas en el estado de Chiapas.

Fault tree analysis and fuzzy expert systems: Early warning and emergency response of landfill operations

Environmental Modelling & Software, 2009

In this paper we argue that Early Warning Systems for engineering facilities can be developed by ... more In this paper we argue that Early Warning Systems for engineering facilities can be developed by combining and integrating existing technologies and theories. As example, we present an efficient integration of fuzzy expert systems, fault tree analysis and Worldwide Web technologies to their application in the development of the Landfill Operation Management Advisor (LOMA), a novel early warning and emergency response system for solid waste landfill operations. The aim of LOMA is to provide assistance to landfill managers on their efforts in preventing accidents and operational problems and to help them to develop emergency response plans if these operational problems shall occur. Additional aim is to disseminate information and knowledge to the public on landfill operational problems and their adverse effects. This aim is related to solid waste organizations that have to accord with legislations which are similar to the European Union's EC Directive (2003/4/EC) on Public Access to Environmental Information. When using LOMA, the user first describes the working conditions at the landfill. Then, based on this description, LOMA informs user about the potential operational problems. Afterwards, it analyzes the operational problems in more detail and it estimates the possibility of their occurrence. Finally, it provides advice on how to prevent them and how to respond if any of them occurs. This paper thoroughly investigates LOMA development as well as its integral methodologies and validates it by outlining its performance in test cases that were performed by experts during the operation of a real landfill as well as in test cases extracted from a specially constructed database with synthetic events.

Representing river system behaviour in UML to enhance development of DSS

Water management decisions often have far reaching consequences for the every day life of the inh... more Water management decisions often have far reaching consequences for the every day life of the inhabitants of a river basin. To take these consequences into account during decision making processes, we aim to develop a software tool that can indicate the expected effects of different management strategies on a number of river functions. This requires knowledge domain representation that fits the perception of stakeholders, and at the same time provides a starting point for modelling. We found that UML provides a language that on the one hand facilitates the communication and is intuitively understood, and on the other hand provides a high level of consistency as well as decomposition into elements that can easily be modelled. Moreover, UML provides the space required to deal with both quantitative and qualitative information, which is desirable to incorporate knowledge of different scientific fields / disciplines.

On Using Software As a Service to Deploy An Early Warning Service

International Conference on …, 2009

This paper was motivated by the involvement of the au-thors in a case study aiming at deploying a... more

Knowledge Acquisition and Risk Analysis in Material Recovery Facilities by a Virtual Team

Information Technologies in Environmental Engineering

A knowledge acquisition process that has been implemented by a virtual team for the development o... more A knowledge acquisition process that has been implemented by a virtual team for the development of a knowledge based early warning system in Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) operations will be presented. During the process, hazard and risk analysis techniques have been used extensively. In this paper emphasis will be given on the: a) activities and workflow, b) communication methods and tools used, c) the model of collaboration The result was to acquire and codify the complicated picture of the events, which are acting as triggering mechanisms to a number of operational problems, incidents and accidents during MRFs operations.