Understanding risk -- Putting risk in perspective -- Risk charts : a way to get perspective -- Judging the benefit of a health intervention -- Not all benefits are equal : understand the outcome -- Consider the downsides -- Do the benefits outweight the downsides? -- Beware of exaggerated importance -- Beware of exaggerated certainty -- Who's behind the numbers?

Laugh and learn with this unique book that offers a glimpse at the lighter side of life's risks. Starting with a must-read consumer's guide to taking charge of health information and filled with health and risk-related quotes and cartoons, this book belongs in every physician's waiting room. Risk in Perspective helps consumers evaluate health and scientific information and consider how the information can be used to improve their lives.

Classical economic theory assumes that people in risk situations follow a course of action based on a rational, consistent assessment of likely outcomes. But as Zur Shapira demonstrates in Risk Taking, corporate managers consistently stray from the prescribed path into far more subjective territory. Risk Taking offers a critical assessment of the relationship between theory and action in managerial decision making. Shapira offers a definitive account of the classical conception of risky decision making, which derives behavioral prescriptions from a calculation of both the value and the likelihood of possible outcomes. He then demonstrates how theories in this vein have been historically at odds with empirical observations. Risk Taking reports the results of an extensive survey of seven hundred managers that probed their attitudes and beliefs about risk and examined how they had actually made decisions in the face of uncertainty. The picture that emerges is of a dynamic, flexible process in which each manager's personal expertise and perceptions play profound roles. Managerial strategies are continually modified to suit changing circumstances. Rather than formulating probability estimates, executives create potential scenarios based not only on the possible outcomes but also on the many arbitrary factors inherent in their own situations. As Shapira notes, risk taking propensities vary among managers, and the need to maintain control and avoid particularly dangerous results exercises a powerful influence. Shapira also examines the impact of organizational structure, long-term management objectives, and incentives on decision making. With perceptive observations of the cognitive, emotional, and organizational dimensions of corporate decision making, Risk Taking propels the study of managerial risk behavior into new directions. This volume signals the way toward improving managerial decision making by revealing the need for more inclusive choice models that augment classical theory with vital behavioral observations.

Effective risk and opportunity management is key to the successful delivery of any major engineering and construction project. This book looks at how all those involved can manage risk and capitalise on the opportunities that uncertainty present. The authors of this book highlight that uncertainties should be managed rather than avoided. This book will look at simple projects with a small team, to megaprojects where some hundreds of people are involved, and the consequences of delays or unforeseen costs. However, while the obvious risks can be planned for, the authors argue that it is often the opportunities in these situations that can have unexploited potential. This book is about opportunity management seen from the owner’s perspective. It will be an invaluable resource for those studying Engineering both undergraduate and postgraduate and set out ways in which projects should be managed from planning to completion. This book is also a great tool for those working in project management and the construction industry. While there are many books that demonstrate effective construction management, this book is the first of its kind to emphasise that there is opportunity in uncertainty, and possibility in the unexpected.

This book explores various paradigms of risk, domain-specific interpretation, and application requirements and practices driven by mission and safety critical to business and service entities. The chapters fall into four categories to guide the readers with a specific focus on gaining insight into discipline-specific case studies and state of practice. In an increasingly intertwined global community, understanding, evaluating, and addressing risks and rewards will pave the way for a more transparent and objective approach to benefiting from the promises of advanced technologies while maintaining awareness and control over hazards and risks. This book is conceived to inform decision-makers and practitioners of best practices across many disciplines and sectors while encouraging innovation towards a holistic approach to risk in their areas of professional practice.

Laugh and learn with this unique book that offers a glimpse of the lighter side of life's risks. Starting with a must-read consumer's guide to taking charge of health information and filled with health and risk-related quotes and cartoons, this book belongs in every physician's waiting room. Risk In Perspective helps consumers evaluate health and scientific information and consider how the information can be used to improve their lives.

We all like to know how reliable and how risky certain situations are, and our increasing reliance on technology has led to the need for more precise assessments than ever before. Such precision has resulted in efforts both to sharpen the notions of risk and reliability, and to quantify them. Quantification is required for normative decision-making, especially decisions pertaining to our safety and wellbeing. Increasingly in recent years Bayesian methods have become key to such quantifications. Reliability and Risk provides a comprehensive overview of the mathematical and statistical aspects of risk and reliability analysis, from a Bayesian perspective. This book sets out to change the way in which we think about reliability and survival analysis by casting them in the broader context of decision-making. This is achieved by: Providing a broad coverage of the diverse aspects of reliability, including: multivariate failure models, dynamic reliability, event history analysis, non-parametric Bayes, competing risks, co-operative and competing systems, and signature analysis. Covering the essentials of Bayesian statistics and exchangeability, enabling readers who are unfamiliar with Bayesian inference to benefit from the book. Introducing the notion of “composite reliability”, or the collective reliability of a population of items. Discussing the relationship between notions of reliability and survival analysis and econometrics and financial risk. Reliability and Risk can most profitably be used by practitioners and research workers in reliability and survivability as a source of information, reference, and open problems. It can also form the basis of a graduate level course in reliability and risk analysis for students in statistics, biostatistics, engineering (industrial, nuclear, systems), operations research, and other mathematically oriented scientists, wherein the instructor could supplement the material with examples and problems.