Engineering-risk Books

This is a wonderful book. It is a must read if you are interested in science, technology, or history.

Copp and Zanella have written a marvelous text that conbines science, history, and technology in a master manner. They are just two of the marvelous professors at the Claremont Colleges.

If you have had the opportunity to listen to Dr Hillson in one of his lectures or presentations in a PMI Congress, you will be able to appreciate what to wait from this book. It is one of the best I have read related with project risk management, my prefered knowledge area in project management.

The book is well structured, according to the Project Management Institute standard (PMI) PMBOK 2004 Exposure Draft and it goes deep into the different risk processes. The risk identification chapter is packed with consulting techniques, explained with detail. I also enjoyed the qualitative assesment process chapter. The quantitative risk analysis chapter is devoted to Monte Carlo simulation and misses Decision Tree analysis, but he did well describing how to feed data into a simulation, given the results of the qualitative risk assesment, and interpreting the outputs of the simulation.

His exposition is perfectly clear, sometimes going into the subject over and over, so it is a great learning book suitable as a risk text book for a Project Management masters or postgraduate courses. Excellent as well for PMP candidates
Don't be fouled by the title. The author goes into negative impact risks as well as to positive impact risks (opportunities).
I understand the price is high for a risk management book, but it is worth every penny.

Jorge Alsina, PMP

I'm pleased to offer this long-awaited book to colleagues and peers interested in the developing world of risk management. The aim of the book is to explore the implications of extending the definition of "risk" to include opportunity. If the definition is broader, then the risk process should also be expanded to address upside uncertainties. This book presents the definition debate, then describes a generic process for risk management including both threats and opportunities together. A closing section on implementation issues deals with how to make it work in practice, including the role of psychology. Hopefully this book will move the debate forward, as well as giving practical guidelines allowing opportunities to be identified and captured more effectively.

The book provides a wide view of the topic, as useful background information and context for the subject, before focusing on the details needed by the reader for a variety of practical applications. Expert opinion is used by decision-makers, for example, in performing technology assessment to determine the direction of investment in costly research and development. Properly elicited, analyzed, and interpreted, expert opinion - subjectivity - can be as useful as objective data in decision-making for engineers and managers.

Professor Ayyub's book contributes to the literature on expert opinion in several unique ways. First, it is built on the philosophical and epistemological foundations of recognizing and categorizing what is not known. Some may consider this a foundation built on sand. I consider it a foundation based on understanding the weaknesses in knowledge before we build. Only from this perspective can we critically evaluate what we think we know. Second, with the recognition of the wide variety of types of ignorance, one can seek to find the most appropriate mathematical representation for the ignorance. This approach is contrary to the tradition in expert elicitation of seeing all ignorance as representable by traditional probability theory.

Excellent! I knew nothing of statistics or probability until this book. It takes you through a crawl, walk, run of these needlessly feared subjects. The practical applications are uncanny. Although focused on engineering applications, any academic discipline would gain from this book. Serrano also teaches you the basic ins and outs of the powerful C based Maple mathmatics software.

Excellent! Even if you fear probability and statistics, you can learn so much from this book. Dr. Serrano provides a crawl, walk, run approach to probability, statistics, and uncertainty. Any academic discipline could gain from this book, but the examples used tend toward engineering and its applications. Not only will the reader gain a firm foundation on the subject matter, the latter chapters take you to the upper level of stats, probability, and modeling of the unknown. As a bonus, Dr. Serrano inserts helpful hints and example programs to use in the very powerful C based Maple mathmatics software.

No matter where you stand on the GE technology, this book offers challenges. Lay readers of Genetically Engineered Organisms should be prepared to tackle technical language and ideas. But the greater challenge is the authors' exciting analysis, which upsets the belief that there are easy answers in the GE debate.

Even without completely grasping the science, the readers gets a front row seat on the issue's full-blown complexity. Perhaps more importantly, the authors show just how much work there is left to do to understand the full implications of GE technology. Genes, it seems, can misbehave in ways that most people have never imagined.

The deliberate alteration of the genomes of many different organisms, called genetic engineering, is now commonplace, and there is every indication that this will increase dramatically in years to come. Most of this will occur due to pressures to find new drugs, with pharmaceutical companies footing the bill for most of the research and practice of genetic engineering. But the use of genetic engineering to obtain pharmaceuticals is only one strategy for the alleviation of human diseases and maladies. Another is to change the genomes of certain organisms and release them into the wild, with the hope that they will interact with their wild-type cousins that are deleterious to human health and neutralize them to a large extent.

This is an exciting strategy, and of course raises concerns as to its efficacy and its safety. This book is a collection of articles that addresses both the technology of genetic engineering and the safety concerns, and can be read by those who like this reviewer, are not experts in genetics or molecular biology but who are very interested in the subject matter. Everything about genetic engineering is fascinating, but one must temper ones fascination with sound and informed judgments as to its effects on the environment. Careful risk assessments must be made, and when the technology is proven within a reasonable margin to be safe, it should be deployed without hesitation.

Along these lines, one of the articles in this book entitled "The Spread of Genetic Constructs in Natural Insect Populations" details the use of transgenic strategies in mosquitoes for controlling malaria. This discussion takes place under the more general topic of genetic driving mechanisms for natural and genetically engineered insects in natural populations. Can one indeed introduce transgenic mosquitoes into the wild so as to suppress significantly the natural (malaria) mosquito populations? What factors hinder the efficacy of the transgenic strategy and what factors enhance it? Are there any dangers that are readily apparent in this strategy? The specific goal is to control the parasite in the midgut of the mosquito so that it cannot be transmitted: the transgenic strategy must be "gut-specific" to use the terminology of the authors. They also explain why an immunization program would not work for insects due to their short lifespan, and due to their inability to synthesize normal antibodies. Also very useful in this article is the outline on the various genetic engineering strategies that have been used for insect pest control, such as inducible fatality genes and sterile insect techniques. But the major emphasis in the article is the need for `driving mechanisms' in ensuring that the strategy works in the wild population: such a mechanism introduces a genetic trait into this population by eliminating individuals without that trait. Transgenic insects must be able to preserve themselves in the natural population and therefore their genetic constructs must be related to the driving mechanism in order to do this. The only thing that might be lacking in this article is a more quantitative analysis, along the lines of what can be found in the field of population dynamics, of the efficacy of transgenic strategies. For example, one might be interested as to the extent of which gene flow is "topologically transitive", i.e. given a certain gene construct and any particular genome, quantify the extent to which this gene construct can find its way into the genome, either through the germ line or from "horizontal" gene transfer.

At the present time there is much angst concerning the release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment, and this is aggravated by Hollywood movies and some of the bad news regarding gene therapies for example. Bt corn and its affect on the butterfly populations has also been hotly debated in the national press, and the genetic engineering of some dangerous viruses has induced fear into the hearts of many. Even somewhat farfetched scenarios such as "genome bombs" have been blown out of proportion as have other threats under the topic of bioterrorism. It is doubtful that this book will relieve these anxieties, irrational as they are, but it does offer a rational assessment of the risks of genetic engineering and what really has been accomplished as of the date of publication. More analysis is needed, especially since breakthroughs in genetics and molecular biology are occurring so frequently that it is becoming difficult to study their impact in a timely fashion.

Product was purchased for a class. It arrived on time and in good shape.

A must for anyone who regularly needs to reference security related material. The Handbook of Loss Prevention and Crime Prevention is a comprehensive manual covering all aspects of Security and I highly recommend it to you.

it seems to be a great ,full with knowledgement and i think it's interesting book and worth reading...

This is perhaps, the most authoritative handbook in total quality management with an excellent coverage of all topics. It contains a section on notable authors that summarises the work of major authors in quality and a glossary that defines the common terms. Every important quality topic is covered in a chapter unlike other reference quality books. There are no redundant discussions. It is a must have book even though highly priced but well worth it.

In December 1955 the stormy rescue of a disabled freighter by the Victoria, BC salvage tug Sudbury made headlines around the world: a feat which was to repeat year after year as the Sudbury and Sudbury II made dramatic rescues through typhoons and shipwrecks alike. High Seas, High Risk is the saga of the two salvage tugs which became famous for risky deep-sea rescues and long-distance towing; in the processing telling of an owner who began with nothing and turned two little tugs into a challenging, successful business. True life adventure at its best.

This book tells the story of the Island Tug & Barge Co's two big salvage tugs, both named "Sudbury". Island Tug & Barge is now history. Its greatest years were the fifties and sixties. The big tugs were initially acquired for the towage of ships to the scrapyards, which was a thriving business in those years. The entered also in deepsea salvage work where both tugs earned their fame. The book tells about the tugs and, of wrecks, of ferocious storms, of tugs riding out typhoon weather the tow still attached. And of the crewmembers of course. The book is a very good read, also to the non-initiated in the business of deep sea salvage. It also has a number of photographs accompanying the text. It is good that this piece of marine history has been published.

Even though ignition is the most important event in the course of a fire (no ignition: no fire), up until now there has not been a handbook devoted to this vital safety topic. The Handbook is a massive resource, consisting of 1116 pages, tightly set in a 2-column, 8.5' x 11' (215 x 280 mm) format. The book includes 627 black-and-white figures, 447 tables, and 140 color plates. The Handbook is divided into two main sections: Chapters 1 through 13 include presentations of the fundamental principles of ignition sources and of the response of ignitable materials to heat or energy in various forms. Chapters 14 and 15 constitute an 'encyclopedia of ignition,' containing extensive information on individual materials, devices, and products. Chapter 14 comprises alphabetically-arranged narrative descriptions of ignition properties and hazards for substances ranging from 'Accelerants in incendiary fires' to 'Zirconium.' Chapter 15 contains database tables giving information on 473 pure chemical compounds and over 500 commercial or natural products, including such substances as dusts, fuels, lubricants, plastics, and woods. For long life and ease of use, the book has been manufactured using the highest quality, traditional book production processes-the book is printed on acid-free paper, the pages are sewn (rather than glued together), and the book is bound in real cloth covers. Two placeholder ribbons are provided. Fire safety is a truly interdisciplinary specialty and includes professionals working as fire protection engineers, fire investigators, fire safety scientists, loss prevention specialists, hazmat specialists, risk managers, insurance adjustors and SIU personnel, chemical process safety engineers, forensic scientists, and others. The educational backgrounds of these individuals will be diverse, especially as concerns their understanding of mathematics. Thus, a special approach was taken in preparing the Ignition Handbook-qualitative presentations and mathematical presentations are segregated into different sections in the book. The qualitative information will be of value to all fire safety professionals, while those without a good foundation in mathematics can omit the mathematical sections. The Handbook will also be of interest to electrical engineers, since it is the first book to examine electrical fires from a systematic, comprehensive point of view. Much of the research on electrical fires has been done in Japan, and the Ignition Handbook contains the first English presentation for most of this work. The Ignition Handbook treats in detail not just ignition of fires but also initiation of explosives and pyrotechnics and explosions of unstable substances. Ignition is defined as the 'initiation of combustion' but many unstable substances react in ways where heat is produced by a non-combustion reaction, e.g., decomposition or polymerization. The scope of the Handbook includes the initiation of exothermic reactions in such substances. The sections that deal with hazardous materials will be of special interest to workers in this field, because the Handbook endeavors to present ignition aspects in a more thorough way than can be found in existing monographs.

I have been in the fire investigative arena for the last fifteen years. I have read many books on the subject, and this is the most authoritative and comprehensive book I have read. Chapter 14 relating to failures of appliances contains useful, practical information and has very informative pictures. The author has obviously referenced many professionals in our business to create this work. If you conduct fire investigations for a living, then you should own and read this book!

OCTAVE--which stands for Operationally Critical Threat, Asset and Vulnerability Evaluation--is a methodology for independent information-security risk evaluations. An outgrowth of the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University, OCTAVE attempts to help organizations balance the risks of information systems with the business need to deploy these systems. This book is a solid explanation of OCTAVE.

The authors detail the methods to implement OCTAVE, create threat profiles, conduct a risk analysis, develop strategy, and so on. All steps to ensure that risk is adequately addressed are presented.

Most useful for the practitioner are the book's numerous case studies and worksheets and its catalog of the eight OCTAVE processes. A caveat: it is unwise to fill out the worksheets without first reading the book. Doing OCTAVE right means no shortcuts. Also, the reader shouldn't think that this approach can be implemented by a single person in a few days.

In sum, while the prose doesn't exactly sing, it does strike the appropriate tone for this excellent presentation on OCTAVE.

The OCTAVE approach is an effective and proven approach to security risk management, and this book distills the documentation that is available from SEI's CERT/CC group into a succinct, clearly written description of OCTAVE and associated processes.

OCTAVE stands for "Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation", which focuses specifically on business or organizational critical success factors and operational postures. This differs slightly from traditional vulnerability assessments, which are wider in scope, and auditing, which is based on policies and due diligence. While there seems to be little distinction on the surface, as you read this book you discover that OCTAVE's focus and philosophy is akin to Pareto analysis in that you narrow the scope to business success and operational factors.

The book is divided into three main parts:

I - Introduction (introduces OCTAVE and describes the basics).
II - OCTAVE Method (explains the method, how to identify organizational knowledge, create threat profiles, identify key components, select components for evaluation, conduct a risk analysis, develop and select a strategy).
III - Variations and tailoring strategies.

In addition to the main sections the appendices are valuable. They include case studies, worksheets and a catalog of the eight OCTAVE processes.

Note that OCTAVE is intended for organizations in excess of 300 people, although OCTAVE-S (briefly covered in Part III) is a scaled down version of the main approach. There is also a version of OCTAVE that addresses outsourcing, but was skimmed over very quickly in the book.

The book is an excellent guide to OCTAVE, and, in my opinion, OCTAVE itself is a viable approach to information security risk management.